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THE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB: ITS MEMBERS AND ITS HISTORY (1900-2006)
THE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB:ITS MEMBERS AND ITS HISTORY (1900-2006)
Editor: Matthew C. Perry
Published by:The Washington Biologists’ Field Club
Washington, D.C.2007
Printed by:The Maple Press Company
York, Pennsylvania
Copyright (C) 2007 by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, the Washington Biologists’ Field Club.
ISBN 13: 978-0-615-16259-1
Suggested citation: Perry, M. C. (editor). 2007. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club: Its Members and its History (1900-2006). Published by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Washington, D.C. 352 pp.
Written by many members of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club over a period of many years.
Desktop publishing: Caroline S. Bond and Edward J. R. Lohnes
Preface
This book is based on the history of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club which has now spanned 106 years, and the biographical sketches of its members. The history has been written by members over many years and the biographies, likewise, are a collection of those written by members. Since the Club was founded in 1900 there has been a total of 267 members, representing all branches of science, with a strong emphasis on biology as the Club’s name indicates. In addition to the scientists there have been famous naturalists (e.g., John Burroughs), administrators (e.g., Ira Gabrielson), and artists (e.g., Roger Tory Peterson), that have been members. This book started as a project for the Club’s centennial celebration in 2001, but owing to numerous logistical problems and the diffi culty in obtaining information on some members, completion of the project was delayed. We lack full information on some of our members, which results in very brief biographical sketches for these individuals. We also lack pictures of eight of our members. Much of the information about deceased members came from obituaries in journals and newspapers. The biographical sketches of more recent members are autobiographical. Although we have made some editorial changes, we essentially left them as written, and therefore, readers can gain a little insight into the personalities of the members. Numerous members and non-members helped in collecting information and in writing various parts of the book. Members especially helpful in writing biographies include Dick Banks, Dan Nicolson, Dick McCabe, Butch Norden, Stan Shetler, and Warren Wagner. John Brown read and edited one of the late revisions of the text. Numerous volunteers searched the internet for information and several spent many hours editing the book. Throughout the project we were assisted by Edward Lohnes who spent many hours putting the biographies and history on our website and initially transferring it to desktop publishing format for the book. Edward also made numerous trips to Plummers Island for Club outings where he photographed many members. Caroline Bond was responsible for the fi nal formatting of the entire book in preparation for publishing. She read the entire manuscript several times, made editing changes, scanned all the historic pictures as well as many new pictures, and formatted many of the pictures used throughout the book. This project would not have been accomplished without the dedication and perseverance of these two individuals. The book is published mainly for the benefi t of the living Club members, but also for relatives of some of the deceased members. We hope that the book will fi nd its way into libraries across the country so that persons interested in some of the pioneer scientists in various professional areas can obtain biographical information from a fairly well documented source. The editor regrets that time did not permit complete biographical sketches of all members, but hopefully the information generated from this book can be used for future republications and will be added to the website of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, which is updated frequently.
Matthew C. PerryEditor
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INTRODUCTION
The Washington Biologists’ Field Club is composed of persons interested in the biological sciences and in the promotion of research on the fauna and fl ora of the District of Columbia area. Formed in 1900 and incorporated as a society in 1901, the Club has sponsored research by local biologists. Until recently the primary research focus, particularly for taxonomic studies, has been on the biota of Plummers Island and the adjacent mainland. Plummers Island, located on the Maryland side of the Potomac River just east of the Capitol Beltway’s American Legion Bridge, is one of the world’s most famous collecting sites and type localities; research continues on the island to this day. Nearly 400 articles, ranging from short notes to monographic studies, have been published that treat the fauna and fl ora of Plummers Island and vicinity. The Club’s research grant program has been expanded to support biological research within the greater Potomac River Basin. Majority membership throughout the history of the Club has consisted of biologists of the Departments of Agriculture and Interior, and of the National Museum of Natural History. In addition, members have represented practically all organizations in the greater Washington, D.C., area that employ biologists. Some of these include the National Zoological Park, the Chesapeake Bay Center, the National Herbarium, National Science Foundation, Department of the Army, Urban Wildlife Center, Wildlife Management Institute, The Wildlife Society, The Wilderness Society, National Wildlife Federation, National Geographic Society, and International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, as well as local colleges, universities, and high schools. The Club membership list, present and past, includes the names of many of the world’s leading authorities on the taxonomy of plants and animals, along with the names of major personalities in the conservation movement in the United States and in the development and practice of modern fi sh, wildlife, forestry, and wildland management. Biologists from high school teachers to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, including several heads of federal agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey and its successor, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, have numbered among the membership of the Club. Active membership, which is restricted to greater Washington, D.C., residents, was limited to 50 for many years and all members were male. In 1996, the active membership was increased to 60 with the main reason to recruit women as members. The membership was again increased in 2006 to 65. The current membership is 26 male non-resident members and 60 active resident members, which includes 10 women.
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THE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB:ITS MEMBERS AND ITS HISTORY (1900-2006)
Table of Contents
Preface.............................................................................................................................iii
Introduction......................................................................................................................iv
Contents............................................................................................................................v
Members.........................................................................................................................vi
Past Offi cers....................................................................................................................ix
History...............................................................................................................................1
Historical Pictures (1901-1980)......................................................................................14
Agreement and Stipulations between the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. and the United States of America..........................................................................56
Act of Incorporation for the Washington Biologists’ Field Club...................................59
Washington Biologists’ Field Club - Bylaws.................................................................60
Use of the Property ........................................................................................................63
Biographies of Washington Biologists’ Field Club Members........................................64
Biological Studies and Publications .............................................................................297
Memorials of Deceased Members ................................................................................320
Current Pictures (1981-2006).......................................................................................325
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Acevedo-Rodriguez, PedroAdams, Lowell WilliamAldrich, John WarrenAllen, Durward LeonAllen, Philip FarleyAppel, William D.Archino, Samuel P.Ashmead, William HarrisBailey, Vernon OrlandoBall, Carleton RoyBanko, Winston EdgarBanks, Richard CharlesBarber, Herbert SpencerBarrows, Edward M.Bartlett, Harley Harris Bartsch, PaulBatra, Suzanne Wellington TubbyBaum, Henry ElwoodBeattie, William RenwickBenedict, James EverardBerryman, Jack HolmesBlake, Sidney FayBlockstein, David EdwardBogan, Michael A.Boness, Daryl JohnBrady, Maurice KirbyBritton, Nathaniel LordBrouha, PaulBrown, EdgarBrown, John WesleyBryant, Harold ChildBuechner, Helmut KarlBuell, Noble E.Bulmer, WalterBurleigh, Thomas DearbornBurroughs, JohnBusck, AugustCahalane, Victor HarrisonCarleton, Mark AlfredCarleton, Michael D.Chamberlain, Edward BlanchardChurchill, John AlvordClarke, John F. GatesCollins, Guy N.Compton, Lawrence V.Cook, Orator Fuller, Jr.
Cottam, ClarenceCouch, Leo K. Coville, Frederick VernonCowan, Richard SumnerCrawford, James ChamberlainCross, Paul DavidCurrie, Rolla PattersonDargan, Lucas McIntoshDavis, Donald RayDavis, MalcolmDePriest, Paula TeresaDewey, Lyster HoxieDoman, Everett R.Doolittle, Alfred AbelDustman, Eugene HenryDuvall, Allen Jefferson JosephDuvel, Joseph William Tell Eckerlin, Ralph PeterEisenberg, John FrederickEklund, Carl R.Ellis, David HarryEmery, William OrrinEmmons, Louise HickockErickson, Ray CharlesErlanson, Carl OscarErwin, Terry LeeEvenden, Frederick George, Jr.Farr, David FrederickFisher, Albert KenrickFlyger, Vagn FolkmannForsgren, Harvey LloydFoster, Mercedes S.Fowler, James AbbottFranklin, Thomas M. Fredine, Clarence GordonFreeman, Oliver MylesFritts, Thomas H.Fuller, Henry CorbinFuller, Henry ShepardFunk, Vicki AnnGabrielson, Ira NoelGardner, Alfred LuntGardner, Marshall ClossonGidley, James WilliamsGoldman, Edward AlphonsoGoldman, Luther Chase
MEMBERS OF THE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB
vi
Gottschalk, John SimisonGraham, Edward HarrisonGreen, E. C.Griffi th, Richard E. Grinnell, George BirdHadidian, John MichaelHale, Mason Ellsworth, Jr.Hall, Russell JamesHamlet, John N.Handley, Charles O., JrHanson, Walter O.Hay, William PerryHench, John EdwardHenshaw, Henry WetherbeeHerendeen, Patrick StephenHitchcock, Albert SpearHobbs, Horton Holcombe, Jr.Hoberg, Eric PaulHodgdon, Harry EdwardHodges, Ronald WilliamHollister, NedHolt, Ernest G.Hoover, Lawrence GrantHope, William DuaneHopkins, Andrew DelmarHotchkiss, NeilHowell, Alfred BrazierHowell, Judd AlanHumphrey, Philip StrongHurd, Paul David, Jr.Jackson, Hartley Harrad ThompsonJahn, Laurence R.James, Helen FrancesJehl, Joseph Reiher, Jr.Jewett, Susan LeeJohnson, David HornJohnson, Raymond EarlJohnston, David Ware Jones, Clyde Jones, Dale AllanKearney, Thomas HenryKelson, Keith R.Killip, Ellsworth PaineKing, Willis Kress, Walter John EmilKrombein, Karl Von VorseLawrey, James DonaldLeedy, Daniel LoneyLeonard, Emery ClarenceLill, John Thomas
Lincoln, Frederick CharlesLinduska, Joseph PaulLyon, Marcus Ward, Jr.Mann, William M.Manville, Albert Murray, IIManville, Richard HydeMarsh, Millard CalebMaxon, William RalphMcAtee, Waldo LeeMcCabe, Richard EdwardMcDiarmid, Roy WallaceMcGinley, Ronald J.McKenney, Randolph Evans BenderMeanley, BrookeMeehean, O. LloydMerriam, John CampbellMeyer, Frederick GustavMiddleton, WilliamMiller, Gerrit Smith, Jr. Miller, Scott E.Miller, Stuart DouglasMorris, Edward LymanMorrison, Joseph Paul EldredMorton, Eugene SillerMyers, George SpragueNelson, Arnold Lars Nelson, Edward WilliamNelson, Harvey KennethNelson, Robert DwainNelson, Wilford Osmond , Jr.Nicolson, Dan HenryNorden, Arnold WilliamNorden, Beth Mary BallNorris, James Newcome, IVNorse, Elliott AlbertOehser, Paul HenryOlson, Storrs LovejoyOsgood, Wilfred HudsonPainter, Joseph HannumPalmer, William Parenti, Lynne RosemaryParker, Kenneth WilliamPerry, Matthew CalbraithPeters, James ArthurPeterson, Roger ToryPieters, Adrian JohnPinchot, GiffordPiper, Charles Vancouver Pogue, Michael G.Pollard, Charles Louis
vii
Pollock, William McCallyPresnall, Clifford C.Rasmussen, Daniel IrvinRead, Robert WilliamReed, Theodore HaroldReeff, Mark JosephReeves, Henry Milton Ricker, Percy LeroyRiley, Joseph HarveyRobinson, Michael HillRussell, Paul GeorgeSafford, William EdwinSchwarz, Eugene AmandusScofi eld, Carl SchurzSetzer, Henry W. Shannon, Raymond CorbettShear, Cornelius LottShetler, Stanwyn GeraldShoemaker, Clarence RaymondShort, Lester Leroy, Jr.Skog, Laurence EdgarSlattery, Richard GatesSmith, Albert CharlesSmith, Hugh McCormickSmith, Lyman BradfordSohns, Ernest ReevesSolis, Maria Alma Soreng, Robert JohnSpangler, Paul J.Standley, Paul CarpenterStein, Bruce AlanStejneger, Leonhard A.Stern, William LouisSteury, Brent WilliamStevenson, James OsborneStewart, Robert E.Stickel, William H.Streeter, Robert GlenSwales, Bradshaw HallSwallen, Jason RichardSwift, Ernest FremontSwift, Lloyd W.Thomas, Lindsey Kay, Jr.Tidestrom, Ivar FrederickTrauger, David LeeTunison, Abram VorhisTyler, James Chase, IIUhler, Francis Morey Ulke, HenryVan Eseltine, Glen Parker
Vaughan, Thomas WaylandViereck, Henry LorenzVogt, George BrittonWagner, Warren LambertWalker, Ernest PillsburyWallis, William W.Watson, George Elder, 3rdWebb, Ralph EdwardWeber, Walter AloisWeed, Alfred ClevelandWells, Elizabeth FortsonWetmore, AlexanderWheeler, Charles FayWherry, Edgar TheodoreWhite, Charles DavidWhittemore, Alan ThomasWilliams, Robert WhiteWilliamson, Francis S. L.Williamson, Lonnie L.Wilson, Don EllisWirth, Willis WagnerWurdack, John JuliusYeager, Lee EmmettZahniser, Howard ClintonZusi, Richard Laurence
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WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUBPAST OFFICERS 1900-2006
Presidents:1900-1901 - Charles L. Pollard1901-1904 - William P. Hay1904-1906 - Wilfred H. Osgood1906-1911 - Albert K. Fisher1911-1913 - Eugene A. Schwartz1913-1915 - William Palmer1916-1919 - Henry C. Fuller1919-1921 - Frederick V. Coville1921-1924 - William R. Maxon1924-1928 - William O. Emery1928-1931 - Alexander Wetmore1931-1934 - Sidney F. Blake1934-1937 - Ellsworth P. Killip1937-1940 - Frederick C. Lincoln1940-1942 - Francis M. Uhler1942-1945 - James E. Benedict1945-1948 - Hartley H. T. Jackson1948-1951 - Jason R. Swallen1951-1954 - Neil Hotchkiss1954-1956 - Maurice K. Brady1956-1959 - Lloyd W. Swift1959-1962 - John W. Aldrich1962-1964 - Albert C. Smith1964-1967 - Paul H. Oehser 1967-1970 - Ray C. Erickson1970-1973 - Karl V. Krombein1973-1976 - C. Gordon Fredine 1976-1979 - Ronald W. Hodges1979-1981 - John S. Gottschalk1981-1984 - George E. Watson, 3rd1984-1987 - Stanwyn G. Shetler1987-1990 - David L. Trauger1990-1993 - Richard C. Banks1993-1996 - Don E. Wilson1996-1999 - James D. Lawrey1999-2002 - Alfred L. Gardner2002-2005 - Matthew C. Perry2005-2006 - M. Alma Solis
Vice Presidents:1901-1902 - Charles L. Pollard 1902-1904 - Cornelius L. Shear1904-1906 - Albert K. Fisher1906-1907 - William R. Maxon1907-1909 - C. David White1909-1911 - Eugene A. Schwartz1913-1914 - Waldo L. McAtee1919-1921 - William Ralph Maxon1924-1928 - Alexander Wetmore1928-1931 - Sidney F. Blake1931-1934 - Ellsworth P. Killip1934-1937 - Frederick C. Lincoln1937-1940 - Francis M. Uhler1940-1942 - James E. Benedict1949-1950 - Ernest G. Holt1952-1953 - Maurice K. Brady1954-1955 - Lloyd W. Swift1959-1962 - Albert C. Smith1962-1964 - Paul H. Oehser1964-1967 - Ray C. Erickson1967-1970 - Karl V. Krombein1970-1973 - C. Gordon Fredine1973-1974 - Paul J. Spangler1974-1976 - Ronald W. Hodges1976-1979 - John S. Gottschalk1979-1981 - George E. Watson, 3rd1981-1984 - Stanwyn G. Shetler1984-1985 - J. F. Gates Clarke1987-1990 - Richard C. Banks1990-1993 - Don E. Wilson1993-1996 - James D. Lawrey1996-1999 - Alfred L. Gardner1999-2002 - Matthew C. Perry2002-2005 - Roy W. McDiarmid2005-2006 - John W. Brown
ix
Secretary/Treasurer:1900-1901 - Edgar Brown1901-1903 - Edward L. Morris1903-1904 - William R. Maxon1904-1905 - Rolla P. Currie1905-1908 - Alfred A. Doolittle
Secretary:1908-1909 - Alfred A. Doolittle1913-1914 - Henry C. Fuller1924-1934 - Frederick C. Lincoln1934-1944 - Arnold L. Nelson1944-1950 - Neil Hotchkiss1952-1959 - Albert C. Smith1959-1964 - Ray C. Erickson1964-1971 - Richard H. Manville1971-1980 - Mason E. Hale1980-1984 - Terry L. Erwin1984-1987 - David F. Farr1987-1995 - Lowell W. Adams1995-1997 - David W. Johnston1997-1999 - John M. Hadidian1999-2006 - Walter Bulmer
Treasurer:1908-1938 - Percy L. Ricker1940-1941 - Jason R. Swallen1949-1953 - Edward H. Graham1953-1962 - Clifford C. Presnall1962-1975 - James O. Stevenson1975-1981 - Frederick G. Evenden, Jr.1981-1997 - Dan H. Nicolson1997-2006 - Warren L. Wagner
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1
CLUB HISTORY1900 - 2006
2
Late in the autumn of 1899, Charles Pollard, while visiting Philadelphia, learned the story of a naturalists’ camp (Catoxen Cab in), that had been established in May of that year near Medford, New Jersey. He was thoroughly impressed with the value to the working biologist of such a base of operations, and upon his return to Washington, D.C., outlined to several of his friends a scheme for a similar camp in the vicinity of Washington. On January 10, 1900, his friends assembled at Mr. Pollard’s home at 1854 Fifth Street in Washington, where he formally proposed the formation of a club for the study of the biology of the Washington area. Those present heartily approved the plan. An organization was effected under the name Washington Biologists’ Field Club, and com mittees were appointed to draft articles of organization and to make recommendations on a site and equipment. At a second meeting, held January 17, the articles of organization were adopted; a standing committee consisting of Charles Pollard, chair man, Adrian Pieters, William Palmer, Orator Cook, and William Hay was elected; and Edgar Brown was elected secretary-treasurer. The men who attended these fi rst two meetings (and who subsequently pur-chased stock in the organization) were therefore the Founders of the Club. Besides those already named, the list includes Guy Collins, William Maxon, Edward Morris, and William Pollock. At this second meeting the Committee on Site reported on the merits of the several localities suggested by the members, and it was decided to locate in the neighborhood of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. A few days later the members met again, and the chairman of the standing committee stated that, in company with William Palmer, he had vis ited Upper Marlboro and had found a small cottage upon the Bona parte property exactly suited to the needs of the Club. The members decided to rent the house and furnish it. Sale of shares of stock at a value of $5 each produced a sum suffi cient to pay a year’s rental and to buy the necessary furniture and utensils. The outfi t included a small stove, three plain tables, six chairs, six cots, a large hanging lamp, two lanterns, a skillet, an ax, tin plates and cups, and a set of knives, forks, and spoons. On March 1, 1900, the Club took formal possession of the Upper Marlboro house and it was declared open on March 31. The Club spent a year and a half at this house; hardly a week passing without several members making the trip from Washington. However, the journey was too diffi cult to render the expeditions thoroughly enjoyable, and the Club accordingly decided to look for a more accessible location. At last an ideal one was found in Plummers Island, situated in the Potomac River near the Maryland shore nine miles northwest of the White House. The Island was brought to the attention of the Club by LeRoy Topping, an ardent outdoor enthusiast, who had spent much time on the River and had collected on the Island before Club members saw it. This site was adopted April 9, 1901. Since there was no building on the Island, someone proposed the erection of a woods camp to be built by members and expenses thus kept within moderate bounds. It was estimated that for about $200 a cabin could be built that would answer every purpose. Two of the members who had experience at building, William Beattie and William Palmer, were appointed to draw plans, to negotiate for building materials, and to call on others for assistance. In view of the contemplated building operations and probable growth of the Club, it was thought best to reorganize and incorporate under the laws of the District of Columbia. The deed of incorporation was
3
recorded May 23, 1901. A temporary organization of the newly incorporated society was effected on June 1, 1901. At a meeting of the full membership two days later, revised bylaws were adopted, William Hay was elected president and Edward Morris secretary-treasurer. Plummers Island was leased June 8, 1901, for a period of fi ve years at an annual rental of $30, and building operations were begun. The funds necessary for the erection of the cabin were obtained in part by an issue of 25 promissory notes of the value of $5 each, bearing interest at the rate of two percent per annum. This was authorized at a meeting of the board of managers on June 4, 1901. The issue was open to members only.
CABIN CONSTRUCTION
It is not necessary to describe in detail the construction of the cabin, the diffi culties experienced in conveying the material to the bank of the River, and the seemingly interminable labor of transporting it from there by wire trolley to the highest point on the Island, a rocky crest more than 60 feet above the water, which had been chosen as a building site. All set to work with a will, and the cabin gradually arose. The structure was begun late in the spring, and the fi rst snows of winter had fallen before the great stone chimney was completed. The furnishings of the Marlboro house were moved into the new quarters, and the house warming was held on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1901. Five members and eleven guests were present on this occasion. The Clubhouse, as originally constructed, was a one-story cabin, containing one large room, 14 by 28 feet, with a 6-by-9-foot kitchen in a lean-to addition at the rear. A broad porch extended the full length of the cabin on the side facing the River. At one end of the large room was a fi ne open fi replace, wide enough to receive 4-foot logs and high enough to throw out a great deal of heat. At the opposite end were lockers for the use of members. Heavy curtains could be drawn across the room near that end, separating it from the main living room. A high narrow window was on each side of the front entrance on the wall facing the porch and River. A wide low window was on the wall facing down River, and a similar window was near the rear door looking out over a long picnic table. At frequent intervals along the walls were shelves to accommodate the books and other common property of the Club. Originally there was a plentiful supply of cots and bedding. The kitchen contained the wood-burning cook stove, culinary utensils, table service, and staple food supplies. The cabin was covered on the outside with unpainted cypress shingles laid upon a solid sheathing of lumber and was lined on the inside with heavy building paper. The cost of the original building was slightly over the estimated $200, of which sum there was on hand at the beginning only $75. From the regular dues and the entrance fees of new members— and without special assessments—all the notes were redeemed by August 1, 1903. The name Winnemana Lodge was adopted as the
4
offi cial designation for the Clubhouse at the annual meeting of 1906. Winnemana means “beautiful island.” The term was exhumed from a local Indian language by Henry W. Henshaw.
THE ISLAND
From the moment that Plummers Island was selected as the home of the Club, purchase of the site was contemplated. On June 3, 1901, at the fi rst meeting after incorporation, the Club authorized the rental or purchase of the Island. It was found that rental only was possible at the time. Funds for surveying and purchasing the Island were voted in 1902. Early in 1903, it was announced that the owner was unwilling to sell at a reasonable fi gure, and action was taken looking toward the selection of a suitable site elsewhere. This investigation continued for more than two years. Meanwhile the hope of ultimately purchasing the Island was not abandoned. The validity of the title to the land was investigated in 1904 with apparently satisfactory results. Negotiations were then pressed with more vigor, and a promise was obtained that sale would be discussed in September 1905. Before this time arrived, death caused a change in ownership of the property and threw it into litigation. Although the Club was ready to act at any time, the committee on purchase having at its disposal money for the actual buying of the Island, as well as for legal expenses, no further progress was made until December 1906. The new owner agreed to sell provided it was recommended by his counsel. To deal effectively with the situation the Club also retained a legal adviser, who scrutinized closely all deeds and transfers bearing on the case. The original grant of the territory adjacent to the Island was made in 1684, the estate being called Carderrock. Neither in this nor any subsequent deed was an island mentioned, the southern boundary of the tract being the shore of the River. Furthermore, written and printed evidence seemed to prove that the Island had been separate from the mainland since time immemorial. It was evident that the claimant’s title to the Island was uncertain, to say the least. The Club’s attorney, therefore, announced the intention of acquiring the Island by patent, at the same time signifying the Club’s willingness to buy the claimant’s quit-claim. Charles Pollard applied to the State Land Commissioner for a patent to Plummers Island on June 7, 1906. A warrant for survey was issued the next day, but owing to delay, principally on account of high water, the survey was not made until March 23, 1907. The report of the county surveyor was submitted on April 29. Under the law, a patent is issued six months after the receipt of this report, provided no caveat is fi led. A short time before the expiration of this period, a caveat imperfect in form was fi led. It was not accepted by the commissioner, but a delay of 30 days was granted so that a perfect one could be presented if desired. The Club’s attorney then obtained promise from the claimant’s attorney that formal caveat would not be fi led pending negotiations for purchase of a quit-claim. A price was set, and the board of managers of the Club authorized the purchase of about 10 acres on the mainland in addition to the quit-claim to the Island. This action was approved at a meeting of the whole Club on December 3, 1907. At this meeting the Club voted to issue gold bonds of a total value of $1,800 with face value of $10 each and interest at the rate of two percent per annum, to mature in 20 years. They were secured by fi rst mortgage on the Club property and were sold to Club members only. It was voted to keep $600 of the issue in the treasury subject to future action by the Club. Trustees were
5
appointed to acquire Mr. Pollard’s patent rights and proper title to the mainland tract and to arrange for the mortgage. At a special meeting, January 15, 1908, the Club authorized the purchase of 25 acres on the mainland in addition to the 10 already bargained for, and the bonds reserved at the December meeting were released for sale to the Club. The actual purchase was concluded soon thereafter, and a quit-claim to the Island and deed to the mainland property were received March 4, 1908. The deeds were recorded a few days afterward, thus removing every obstacle to the issuance of patent to the Island. As Mr. Pollard had assigned his rights to the
Club, the patent was issued by the State Land Commissioner on March 21, 1908, in the name of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. Title to the 12 acre island was now complete. Thus, the plans and efforts of seven years were consummated. In the early 1920s, trespass on Club property by a squatter on land east of Rock Run led ultimately to the purchase of a tract of 3.5 acres that extends from Rock Run to Lock 10 and from the canal to the River. In 1921, this squatter, Leland Barton, was trespassing regularly on the Club’s mainland property and was saying that he had a patent on various rocks in the River east of Plummers Island. The next year he dammed the mouth of Rock Run, presumably to cause further alluvium to be added to the easternmost shoreline of the mainland property, which he surveyed and claimed as an accretion to his supposed patent. The solution to this problem seemed to be in the Club’s acquiring the tract on which Barton lived, and
6
so early in 1922 an attorney, Edward Stafford, began work on the case. A year passed before the owner was found and another year before the Club received the deed to the property, for which it paid $200. The deed was recorded July 3, 1924. However, that was not the end of the case, for it was not until August 9, 1927, that Barton was served a writ of eviction. On November 13, 1927, a $1,500 bond issue (20 years at fi ve percent) was authorized to cover the cost of the Barton tract and legal fees connected with its purchase and Barton’s eviction. These bonds were redeemed in 1948. Thus, in addition to Plummers Island, the Club then owned 38.5 acres on the mainland, a tract that overlapped the Island at both ends that preserved the Club’s right-of-way and insured comparative privacy. This mainland property is bounded on the north by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and on the south by the Potomac River. The western boundary ran from the River just west of Plummers Island in a roughly north-northeast direction to Lock 12, the eastern boundary from Lock 10 south to the River. Corners along this line were marked by stones bearing the initials W.B.F.C. Fences were erected on the west, north, and east boundaries in the years 1909 to 1911, with partial replacement in 1927. The fence on the north side did not strictly follow the property line, which at one angle approached within three feet of the edge of the canal.
7
THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
After several years of rumor and speculation about what to do in such an eventuality, the Club fi nally was advised that on June 24, 1958 the United States Government, by condemnation proceedings, had taken possession of its Plummers Island property. The taking of these tracts by the Government was in accordance with the Capper Cramton Act, which called for acquisition of both shores of the Potomac River and its islands for extension of the George Washington Memorial Highway to Great Falls. Added to this blow came the information that the States of Maryland and Virginia had chosen a site 200 feet upstream from the west end of Plummers Island for a high bridge across the Potomac connecting the proposed new Capital Beltway (Interstate Route 495) around Washington, D.C. Having been warned some time in advance that both of these acts were impending, the Club appointed a committee to investigate possibilities of obtaining a site for its clubhouse and activities elsewhere in the Washington area. These investigations failed to turn up a site that was as desirable for the Club’s purposes, from the standpoint of accessibility and natural history interest, as Plummers Island. Therefore it was decided by the board of managers at a special meeting on July 10, 1958 to work out an agreement with the National Park Service for the Club to continue its exclusive use of the 12-acre island portion of the property in return for waiver of rights of fi nancial compensation for this parcel of its condemned land, and at the same time to try through legal channels to obtain as much compensation as possible for the 38.5 acre mainland portion. The agreement was worked out and signed by both parties on July 24, 1959. This document, with court order to accomplish its purpose, is recorded among the land records of Montgomery County, Maryland. The agreement with its stipulations is presented as part of this book. On March 15, 1961, through its attorneys, the fi rm of Lambert & Northrop, the Club received fi nal payment on a total of $49,500 awarded in out-of-court action by the U.S. Department of Justice for the mainland area. These funds were deposited to the account of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, and immediately a committee was appointed to consider the problem of their investment. Subsequently it was decided to use the income from the Club’s invested funds to support research and publication on the biology of Plummers Island and environs.
BUSINESS AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
Some of the business activities of the Club are not without historical interest. The board of managers is the mainspring of the Club’s actions. Little is known of the standing committee and its meetings during the years 1900 and 1901. The board, as now understood, was fi rst elected on June 3, 1901, and held its fi rst meeting the next day. Two regular meetings are held each year, in March and October. In the fi rst 12 years special meetings brought the total to an average of fi ve a year, but in recent years few special meetings have been needed. A business meeting of the entire membership is held each April. In recent years the administrators of the National Zoological Park have been the Club’s hosts at each of these annual meetings. The house and grounds committee was established by the board of managers on December 10, 1901. A custodian of photographs was appointed in 1903, this position metamorphosed later into the committee on books and photographs.
8
Bylaws for the Club were adopted at the fi rst regular meeting after incorporation in 1901. They have been amended several times, most recently in 1995. The bylaws now in force are printed in this book. Active membership, which is restricted to greater Washington, D.C. residents, was limited to 50 members for many years and all members were male. In 1996, the active membership was increased to 60 members with the main reason to recruit women and 10 women were elected as members. For many years, the dues were $5 a year, but in 1995 they were raised to $20 per year to adequately cover the cost of food for the two annual outings and the annual meeting. In 2006, the dues were increased to $25 per year. The social highlights of the year are the Club’s spring fi eld meeting with a shad bake, held annually at the Island since 1904, and the fall fi eld meeting with an oyster roast, held annually since 1911. They usually are attended by more than half of the active members and by fi ve or more guests. The meetings are now held on the Saturday closest to the fi rst day of May and November, respectively. The Club has entertained at Plummers Island groups of members of various scientifi c societies, among them the American Ornithologists’ Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Congress of Zoologists, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, and the Botanical and Biological Societies of Washington. The Island also has been the scene of many special occasions, such as the dinner in honor of the 75th birthday of Jonathan Hall Sage on April 20, 1922. Many distinguished guests, such as President Theodore Roosevelt, Ambassador Bryce, Dr. Frank M. Chapman, Ernest Thompson Seton, William T. Hornaday, Senator Fred C. Walcott, Justice William O. Douglas, Congressman Gilbert Gude, and the Hon. William D. Hassett, have enjoyed the Club’s hospitality. Since the beginning the Club has maintained a register in which the names of members and guests, the dates of their visits, and notes of interest have been recorded. The fi rst entry for the Upper Marlboro house was for March 31, 1900. Charles Pollard, William Hay, and William Maxon were present, with Wilfred Osgood as guest. Edward Morris was the fi rst to pass a night in the house. The notes in this register vary from accounts of gardening operations to poetry. The last entry for Upper Marlboro is June 30, 1901, and the fi rst for Plummers Island, November 28, 1901. The later registers contain frequent biological or meteorological notes, some of unusual interest. In some years the cabin has been occupied for part of the day on more than two-thirds of the days, registrations of members and guests have exceeded 1,000, and overnight registrations have exceeded 300. Since 1962, weekly inspection tours of the Island property have been conducted regularly by members in an effort to reduce vandalism, or at least to discover it in a more timely manner so that repairs can be made more promptly. The tours are made on a rotational basis among the resident members, so that it is seldom that a member is assigned this duty more than once a year.
9
CENTENNIAL
The Club celebrated the centennial of its founding in January 1900, and the housewarming of the cabin on Plummers Island in November 1901. The membership at the 1988 and 1989 annual meetings agreed that a major celebration should mark this oc casion, and the board of managers directed that a committee should be appointed to plan for it. One thing that was generally agreed upon is that the centennial should be marked by publication of a new and probably expanded edition of “The Members and History” book, published in 1984, and the supplement of 1993. All members were invited to share their ideas with the president who initially chaired the planning committee. A committee was formed and was chaired by Al Manville. Numerous activities were discussed, but the two major ones that evolved from the committee deliberations were to have a major dinner celebration at the Cosmos Club and to produce a book on the Club history and membership. The dinner was held on February 15, 2000, and there was large attendance of Club members. Guest speaker was Chris Madson, Editor of Wyoming Wildlife Magazine. Although the book project was greatly delayed, this book is also a product of the wishes of the centennial committee.
BIODIVERSITY AT PLUMMERS ISLAND
In 1991, President Dick Banks appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Vice President Don Wilson to investigate potential ways of in creasing the taxonomic breadth of our knowledge of the biodiversity of Plummers Island and the nearby mainland. While the vertebrates, plants, and a select few insect groups had been studied intensively on the Island, many invertebrate taxa remained totally unknown. The committee also was charged with developing a strategy to disseminate that information to the biological community at large. The committee initially compiled a list of literature in which any aspect of the biota of Plummers Island was treated. Currently plans are being developed to fi ll gaps in our knowledge through the Club ’s research grants program. As part of the Club’s centennial anniversary in 2000, it was decided to publish a book-length volume summarizing our knowledge of the biota of the site. Subsequently it was decided to divide this treatment
Chris Madson and Al Manville President Al Gardner and his wife, Kitty
10
into three distinct publications: fl ora, invertebrates, and vertebrates. A contemporary review of the fl ora was published recently by Stan Shetler and collaborators, and a volume including numerous contributions on the invertebrate fauna is nearing completion.
REPAIRS TO PROPERTY
The sound construction of the cabin enabled it to withstand the elements for more than 60 years with only slight repairs. However, in the mid-1960s the cabin suffered frequent and continued vandalism with windows and doors broken and furniture destroyed. The Club authorized the addition of shutters to the windows, which could be bolted from inside, and heavier doors and locks. Paul Spangler undertook this renovation in 1968 with a hired carpenter, and the opportunity was taken to replace the cabin roof and to enlarge the cramped kitchen and add windows to it. Regrettably, vandalism and break-ins continued, and successive house and grounds committees had to undertake frequent repairs. In an effort to maintain the cabin in good repair several projects were conducted in the 1990s by members or by persons under contract from the Club. The fi replace was completely re-bricked on the inside hearth and mouth of the chimney. The original wooden mantle was reinstalled with new brick supports. The stone on the outside of the chimney was repaired with new mortar where necessary. A new stainless steel zero-tolerance stovepipe was installed on the stove in the kitchen. The fi replace and stove repairs greatly de creased the chance of accidental fi re. New cross beams were installed inside the cabin to improve the strength of the roof and the capacity for storage of portable picnic tables. Repairs to the fl oor, fl oor supports, porch roof, windows, and walls were made as needed. Shingles were replaced where necessary, and all wood on interior and exterior, including picnic tables, was stained with appropriately colored wood pre-servative. Permanent benches were installed outside for the long, per manent picnic table to replace the chairs and portable benches that were burned by uninvited “guests” that inhabited the cabin on numerous occasions. Two shorter permanent tables and benches also were installed to replace the portable picnic tables. At the suggestion of President Dick Banks, a permanent seat was installed at the head of the table so the president no longer had to sit on a cut log which had become an uncomfortable tradition. A new sign (a replica of the old one) was installed on posts at the downstream end of the Island near the rock crossing to replace the old one nailed to a tree. Floodwaters soon revealed
Members and friends volunteered to install new shingles
Repairs to the roof were made by a contractor
11
to the embarrassment of the installer that the sign should have been placed parallel to the River instead of perpendicular and changes were made quickly. Three new signs were installed on the three doors. Repairs to the outside fi replace were made when necessary, and new grills for shad and oysters were made by Al Gardner. A new shingle roof was installed after old shingles were removed and rotten boards replaced. All new shingles were carried in by the members in one day, whereas, the old shingles were piled near the cabin and slowly were removed by members over a several month period. The cabin has been sinking slowly and a large gap between the chimney and the main cabin is obvious. This project awaits the initiative of young, energetic members.
RESEARCH GRANTS Research on the natural history of the Potomac Basin has been en couraged by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club since its inception in 1901. In particular, the Club has a long-standing interest in promoting fi eld studies that have a direct relevance to Plummers Island and the adjacent mainland formerly owned by the Club. Since 1992, the Club has provided small grants to support research activities focused on inventories of little known groups of biota (e.g., invertebrates) in an effort to more thoroughly understand and document the biodiversity of the site. Currently (as of 2006), grants of up to $2,500 are offered to qualifi ed investigators who apply to the Club’s research committee. Proposals for research support are solicited annually, and awards are made based on recommendations of the Club’s research committee to the board of managers. Proposals must be sponsored by a Club member, who serves as liaison for reporting progress. Investigators are required to furnish interim and fi nal reports and are encouraged to publish their results in appropriate scientifi c outlets, acknowledging support from the Club. A total of $305,188 has been awarded to 123 researchers in support of 155 grants during the period 1963 to 2006. All grants awarded by the Club are listed in this book. Recent grants have supported studies of breeding birds of the Island, fi shes of the Potomac River, ecological studies of herbaceous plants, the fl ora of various special habitats in the Potomac Basin, the microlepidoptera of the Island, caterpillar food plants, and other diverse aspects of local natural history. Frequently, early studies on the biota serve as a baseline for this recent research. For example, pioneering studies on the effects of pollution from automobiles and trucks on the growth of lichens initiated by Club member Mason Hale were continued and expanded by James Lawrey and students at George Mason University. Likewise, censuses of breeding bird populations allowed documentation of declines when data from studies by John Aldrich and Allen Duvall in the 1940s were com pared with results obtained by David Johnston and Daniel Winings in the 1980s and 1990s. Papers that treat any aspect of the biota of Plummers Island, whether supported by the Club or not, have been compiled in a bibliography of the natural history of Plummers Island and the immediate vicinity and listed in this book. Several larger studies focused specifi cally on the biota of the Island have been published in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, but papers mentioning species collected on the Island are found in a broad array of taxonomic and ecological papers scattered throughout the scientifi c literature.
12
BOOKS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
The books and photographs committee is charged with maintaining the Club’s archives, photographing new members and Club activities during the semiannual shad bake and oyster roast, and preparing pe riodic membership books or supplements thereto. Former committee members, the late Luther Goldman and Karl Krombein, met with archival specialists from the Smithsonian Institution in 1992 to ask for recommendations on better preservation of our archival records. Following recommendations made by the archivists, the committee obtained archival-quality manila folders to store Club records such as minutes of Club and board meetings, correspondence, register sheets from the cabin, and unmounted photographs. Formerly the records were bound as large volumes every ten years. Bound volumes made duplication of particular records diffi cult and prevented integration of records that reached the archives after a volume had been bound. The Club records now are being kept as loose sheets or stapled reports in chronological sequence to facilitate storage and duplication as needed. During the meeting concerning archival maintenance of our negatives and photographs, some of our old albums and negatives, formerly preserved in Karl Krombein’s offi ce, also were shown to the archivists. They were pleased to see these historic photographs and glass plate negatives, remarked how well-pre served they were, and offered the help of the Smithsonian Institution in duplicating our photographs and making fresh negatives for their fi les as well as our own. The late Luther Goldman processed the fi lm he exposed at our annual fi eld meetings and workdays at Plum mers Island in his personal darkroom. Subsequently, he made prints for use in the Club’s albums. He purchased and put into use a new album of archival quality, storing the fi lms and loose prints in archival quality manila folders. Currently the Club’s fi les and albums are in three fi le cabinets at the Smithsonian’s Department of Botany, but available to members and researchers for reviewing upon request. The Club now maintains all new photographs in digital format. It was suggested that members visiting the Island record natural history notes on the register sheet during their visit. These notes and records are particularly valuable for persons searching past records and compiling data for the area over time. For example, Dick Manville, in his update of the vertebrates in our Natural History of Plummers Island series (1968), did a careful search of register records from 1900 to 1945 and made additions to the list from this source. These additions include Dick Griffi th’s 1945 record of the timber rattlesnake on the west end of the Island and Karl Krombein’s 1961 record of the fi rst sighting of the prothonotary warbler on the Island, which was nesting near the cabin. An interesting photographic record was made at the May 4, 1996 shad bake. While clearing the debris from the fi replace, Al Gardner discovered a very live and large copperhead snake. The unwelcome guest was confi ned to a garbage can during the meal and was released on site at the conclusion of the festivities.
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14
Early construction, 1901
Members relaxing on the porch, 1901
15
William Maxon and Edgar Brown installing shingles, 1901
Wilfred Osgood and William Palmer building the porch, 1901
Edgar Brown, William Mann, and Charles Pollard prepared for work, 1901
16
Charles Pollard putting the fi nishing touches on the cabin, 1901
Charles Pollard resting from the labor, 1901
17
The completed cabin with furniture
Fireplace of old
18
A. K. Fisher broiling the shad for the fi rst annual meeting, 1904
Members eating shad at the fi rst annual meeting, 1904
19
Shad bake, May 1906
Crossing the channel to Plummers Island by ferry, April 1908
20
A. K. Fisher, Waldo McAtee, and Eugene Schwarzon front porch of cabin, February 1909
The celebration of the 70th birthday of John Hall Sage at Plummers IslandBack row from left to right: V. Bailey, A. Wetmore, C. W. Richmond, C. F. Butchelder, A. H. Howell,
W. Palmer, E. W. Nelson, F. H. Knowlton, H. C. Oberholser, C. H. Merriam, H. W. HenshawFront row from left to right: N. Hollister, A. K. Fisher, W. L. McAtee, N. Dearborn, L. Stejneger,
J. H. Sage, Witmer Stone, April 1917
21
Club members building a boat for canal crossingleft to right: unknown, Ray Shannon, Alfred Doolittle, unknown
Standing in back row: H. L. Vierick, F. V. Coville, N. Hollister, and G. P. VanEseltine (seated)Sitting in middle row: A. S. Hitchcock, W. L. McAtee, B. Wallis, H. C. Fuller,
J. C. Crawford, and P. L. RickerSitting in front row: W. E. Stafford, T. W. Vaughan, D. White, and H. Graves, November 1918
22
Seated on the porch of the cabin are Ami, F. V. Coville, Sudworth, C. H. Merriam, and H. W. Henshaw, May 1919
Back row left to right: B. H. Swales, E. T. Wherry, W. E. Safford, H. L. Vierick, G. P. VanEseltine, P. L. Ricker, R. W. William, and N. Hollister
Front row left to right: W. Palmer, A. K. Fisher, W. L. McAtee, A. Wetmore, and W. O. Emery, November 1919
23
Annual shad bake, May 1919
Group near front porch of cabin, 1920
24
Distinguished WBFC members pose with Sage on his 75th birthdayEdward Nelson, A. K. Fisher, Leonard Stejneger, Jonathon H. Sage
Cactus Rock, April 1922
Sitting on porch, left to right, L. Stejneger, W. R. Maxon, T. W. Vaughan, W. E. Safford, April 1922
25
Sitting on porch, left to right: B. Mann, F. Lincoln, B. H. Swales,I. Tidestrom, and A. S. Hitchcock, April 1922
Cabin in the snow, February 1925
26
William Maxon, William Beattie, and Edgar Brown, 1925
Club members conducting scientifi c researchleft to right, Paul Bartsch, William Hay, William Palmer,
Alex Wetmore, Alfred Doolittle
27
Shad bake, 1925
Shad bake, 1926
28
Channel island and shore view, 1927
Oyster roast, 1927
29
Fran Uhler with Miss Watson and Miss Johnson, Biological Survey employees, November 1928
Winter group with women and child, 1929
30
Group of members on porch of cabin, 1930
Vista from Cactus Rock, 1930
31
Shad bake, 1930
Oyster roast, 1930
32
Fran Uhler placing a bird boxFebruary 1931
Oyster roast, 1933
Arnold Nelson and Fran Uhler at Plummers IslandMay 1933
A note on the back of the photo which was in Fran’s scrapbook reads, “Evidence that my ‘pard’ and I are still
well fed in spite of the depression”
33
Frederick Coville, John Merriam, Merrill (?), and William Safford
Being served on wooden tables and chairs, May 1950 Neil Hotchkiss, 1950
34
Allen Duvall and Paul Oehser hauling shad, May 1950
Group on Cactus Rock with good view of lichens, May 1950
35Shad bake, 1950
Mike Nadell, Dick Griffi th, and Supreme Court Justice William Douglas after shad bake andwalk along the canal trail to promote C & O Canal as a National Historic Park, 1955
36
George Vogt seated inside cabin, 1963
Path looking downhill from the cabinOn the trail
37
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal lockhouse at Lock #11
Lock #10 on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
38
Crossing to Plummers Island by ferry, fall 1965
Members sawing fi rewood
39
Happy rainy-day work crew takes time outKarl Krombein, Jack Clarke, Paul Spangler, Ron Hodges
Preparing potatoes for hash brownsRay Johnson, Bill Stickel, Dick Banks, 1968
40
Cabin rebuilding supplies, Paul Spangler, John Wurdack, and driver, June 1968
Cabin rebuilding supplies, Ray Erickson, Karl Krombein, and Paul Oehser, June 1968
41
Alex Wetmore and Lloyd Swift, November 1968
Ira Gabrielson, Alex Wetmore, and Dan Leedy, 1968
42
43
44
Foreground: Lloyd Swift, Ira Gabielson, Cliff Presnall, and Gordon Fredine, shad bake, 1970
Ray Erickson, Richard Cowan, and Fran Uhler, shad bake, 1970
45
Cliff Presnall, Paul Oehser, Ron Hodges, and Allen Duvall, 1972
Fine service from the food committee, oyster roast, 1971, Karl Krombein presiding
Jack Clark, Paul Hurd, Jr., and Clyde Jones, 1971
46
Kitchen crew eating, November 1972
Joseph Linduska, Clifford Presnall, and Luther Goldman, November 1972
47
Ron Hodges cutting onions for seasoning the hash-brown potatoes, 1972
Cleaning oysters before roastingAlex Wetmore, Larry Compton, Ray Erickson, fall 1972
Fran Uhler placing cleaned oysters on rack, fall 1972
Jack Clarke making little potatoes out of big ones, 1972
48
Food committee supplies groceries, Cliff Presnall, Joe Linduska, unknown, Jack Clarke, 1972
Cactus Rock gathering Prickly pear cactusfor which Cactus Rock was named
49
Members of work crew on canal towpath heading to Plummers Island in 1973Ron Hodges, Jack Clarke, Larry Compton, Karl Krombein, Gordon Fredine
Dedication of the memorial plaque for Kenneth W. Parker, October 1973
50
Past Presidents, May 1975John Aldrich, Ray Erickson, Lloyd Swift, Alex Wetmore, Karl Krombein, Gordon Fredine
Cliff Presnall and Lloyd Swift, 1976Ray Johnson and Lloyd Swift
51
Oh yes, there is dessert!Lee Yeager cutting pies
After lunch KPDick Cowan, Dick Banks, Dan Leedy
52
Dick Cowan, Ray Erickson, Jim Norris, Dan Nicolson, Terry Erwin, 1978
Members navigating to Plummers Island, spring 1979
53
Members at cabin, 1979
54
George Watson presiding, 1980From thick to thinning to almost no hair at all!
Informal meeting of fi nance committee, 1979Top--Dan Nicolson, Gordon Fredine
Botton--George Watson (President), Fred Evenden
55
Black Rat Snake
Lock 11 and lock house
56
AGREEMENT AND STIPULATIONS BETWEENTHE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB, INC.
AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This agreement made this 5th day of March, 1959, by and between the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. and the United States of America.
WITNESSETH:
WHEREAS, The United States Government has by condemnation pro ceedings, in the United States District Court for the District of Mary land in Civil No. 10676 and by order of Court made the 24th day of June, taken possession of the defendant’s Washington Biologists’ Field Club, property designated in said proceedings as parcels “A” and “B” in tract no. 7, andWHEREAS, This property was acquired by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. and has been used by the said Club as a natural wild area for scientifi c research for over 50 years and a great many scientifi c papers have been written in reference to biological and natural history discoveries made on said land and, more particularly, on that part of said land known as parcel “B” and more familiarly known as Plummers Island containing some 12.238 acres more or less, andWHEREAS, The said Plummers Island has become among systematic biologists one of the world’s most famous collecting spots and type localities, andWHEREAS, The discoveries have indicated the probability of new knowledge in the fi eld of biology and natural history, andWHEREAS, The fame of this island is world-wide and many scientifi c organizations are interested in its preservation as a source of discovery, andWHEREAS, The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. and the United States Government desire to preserve this natural wild area as a sanc tuary and scientifi c research preserve.Therefore, The United States Government’s petitioner in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in Civil No. 10676 and the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc., defendant, and the owner of said parcel of land known as parcel “B” containing some 12.238 acres more or less which said land is an island in the Potomac River and is more familiarly known as Plummers Island, do hereby stipulate and agree that the said parcel “B” be withdrawn from these proceedings and that the said Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. does hereby agree to deed the said island to the United States Govern ment without monetary consideration reserving in said deed to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc., the right to continue to main tain the island as a natural wild area and use it for scientifi c research and for meetings of the Club and to pursue its studies in the fi eld of biology and natural history on the said island so long as the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. exists and desires to continue to use the island for scientifi c research and so long as the further provisions and stipulations contained herein are complied with which are as follows:
1. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. agrees to supply the National Park Service with copies of scientifi c papers resulting from research conducted on said island when available.2. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. will supply the Na tional Park Service with an annual report and will include the names and addresses of the offi cers, list of the members, and a summarization of the scientifi c investigations carried on.3. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. will indemnify the United States against any loss or damage or injury due to the Club’s negligence or any of its members or guests in the use and occupancy permitted under this agreement.
57
4. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. shall maintain its building and facilities on the island or replace the same in orderly and safe condition without expense to the United States.5. No additional buildings, structures, or other physical facilities shall be constructed on the island by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. without fi rst obtaining written approval of the National Park Service.6. It is further stipulated and agreed between the United States Government and the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. that the membership of the Club as constituted on 1 August 1958,
Honorary Members:Bartsch, Paul Mann, William M.Ricker, P. L.
Active Members:Aldrich, John W.Appel, William D.Benedict, J. E.Blake, S. F.Brown, EdgarClarke, J. F. G.Compton, Lawrence V.Davis, MalcolmDuvall, Allen J.Erickson, Ray C.Erlanson, C. O.Fredine, C. GordonFuller, Henry S.Gabrielson, Ira N.Gardner, Marshall C.Graham, Edward H.Griffi th, Richard E.Handley, C. O., Jr.Hotchkiss, Neil
Jackson, Hartley H. T.Johnson , David H.Kelson, Keith R.Killip, E. P.Krombein, Karl V.Leonard, Emery C.Lincoln, Frederick C.Linduska, Joseph P.Meehean, O. LloydMorrison, J. P. E.Nelson, A. L.Oehser, Paul H.Parker, Kenneth W.Presnall, Clifford C.Reed, Theodore H.Russell, Paul G.Setzer, Henry W.Smith, Albert C.Smith, Lyman B.Sohns, Ernest R.Stevenson, James O.Stewart, Robert E.Stickel, William H.Swift, Ernest F.Uhler, F. M.
Vogt, George B.Walker, Ernest P.Wetmore, Alexander Zahniser, Howard
Nonresident Members:Allan, Philip F.Allen, Durward L.Archino, Samuel P.Bartlett, H. H.Bryant, Harold C.Cahalane, Victor H.Cottam, ClarenceCouch, Leo K.Dargan, Lucas M.Eklund, Carl R.Fowler, James A.Hamlet, JohnHolt, Ernest O. McAtee, W. L.Myers, G. S.Peterson, Roger T. Wallis, William W.Wherry, Edgar T.
shall have the privilege of having their ashes placed on said island and a small bronze plaque in their memory placed on the stones of said island and that this privilege shall apply only to the membership as named above as it shall exist as of 1 August 1958.7. It is further stipulated and agreed that the United States Gov ernment will allow the membership of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. to have access by foot over the land owned by the United States Government to the island at all times and whenever desired.8. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. will be permitted to maintain and operate passenger-carrying ferry boats from and to the island which is to be for the exclusive use of the Club and its members and guests for access to the island.9. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. will be permitted to erect and maintain a fence and gate at a suitable location to exclude the general public from the island, but the National Park Service is to be furnished keys to the lock or the National Park Service may provide its own lock if keys are delivered to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc., and will also be permitted to clear the channel between the island and the Maryland
58
shore to maintain a free fl ow of water therein.10. It is further stipulated and agreed that authorized agents and personnel of the National Park Service shall have access to the island and the right to take scientists to the island, but, in that event, the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. shall not be responsible for any injuries or damages resulting to said persons due to conditions upon said island provided said injuries or damages are not caused by negli gence of the Club or by a failure on the part of said Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. to comply with the requirements of this stipulation.11. It is further stipulated and agreed that all rights accruing to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc, or to any member thereof by reason of the provisions of this stipulation or any amendment thereto may be terminated if said Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. no longer exists or in the event after due written notice that the provisions of this stipulation and/or deed which will be executed following sign ing of this stipulation have been violated and continue to be violated by said Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. or its members, guests, employees, or servants for a period of time in excess of six months after receipt of said notice, and further in the event the island shall be no longer used for scientifi c research by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. for more than two years then this stipulation and any like provisions of the deed to be executed conveying the property to the United States shall terminate.12. It is further stipulated and agreed that the United States may construct or permit the construction of needed nonrecreational public improvements upon the island or a portion thereof, which said im provements shall not be inconsistent with the uses to which the island has been dedicated by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc.13. It is further stipulated and agreed that this stipulation shall be come effective after the fi ling and acceptance by the United States of a deed of conveyance containing the provisions outlined herein. The United States of America By: WILLIAM E. FINLEY Director of the National Capital Planning Commission Condemning Authority
The Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Inc. By: LLOYD W. SWIFT President1, Albert C. Smith, certify that I am the Secretary of the corporation named as party herein; that Lloyd W. Swift, who signed this contract on behalf of the party, was then President of said corporation; that said contract was duly signed for and in behalf of said corporation by authority of its governing body, and is within the scope of its corporate powers. ALBERT C. SMITH, Secretary
59
ACT OF INCORPORATION -- WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, being persons of full age and citizens of the United States, and a majority being citizens of the District of Columbia, pursuant to and in conformity with section 545 to 552, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to the District of Columbia, as amended by an act of Congress entitled “An Act to Amend the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to the District of Columbia and for other purposes,” approved 23 April 1884, hereby associate ourselves together as a society or body corporate and certify in writing: 1. That the name of the society is The Washington Biologists’ Field Club. 2. That the term for which it is organized is ninety-nine years.
3. That its particular business and objects are the promotion of re search upon the fauna and fl ora of the District of Columbia and vicin ity, and the general advancement of biological science, with power:
a. To hold meetings. b. To acquire, hold and convey real estate and other property. c. To make and maintain collections of biological specimens. d. To conduct fi eld excursions. e. To establish and maintain a club-house. f. And, in general, to transact any business pertinent to a biolo gists’ fi eld club.
4. That the affairs, funds and property of the corporation shall be in general charge of a Board of Managers, the number of whose mem bers for the fi rst year shall be nine, all of whom shall be chosen from among the members of the Club.
WITNESS our hands and seals this 11th day of May, 1901.ATTEST: J. LOUIS WILLIGE for CHARLES LOUIS POLLARD. Witness for all for WILFRED H. OSGOOD. for W. P. HAY.
Signed by Charles Louis Pollard, Wilfred H. Osgood and W. P. Hayin my presence, and acknowledged by them as and for their voluntary act and deed this 22nd day of May, 1901. J. LOUIS WILLIGE Notary PublicNotarialSealDistrict of Columbia,Offi ce of the Recorder of Deeds
This is to certify that the foregoing is a true and verifi ed copy of a Certifi cate of incorporation, and of the whole of such certifi cate, as received for record on the 23rd day of May, 1901, 1:24 p.m. R. W. DUTTON Deputy Recorder of Deeds
60
WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’FIELD CLUB
BYLAWS
(As amended 14 April 1995)
ARTICLE I—Introduction
1. This Club shall be composed of persons interested in the biological sciences and particularly in the promotion of research upon the fauna and fl ora of the District of Columbia area.2. Wherever in these Bylaws the word Club is mentioned, it shall be taken to mean the corporation, and the word member or members of the Club shall mean member or members of the corporation.
ARTICLE II—Members
1. There shall be four classes of members, namely, active, honorary, emeritus, and nonresident members. 2. Active members shall be persons resident in the District of Columbia or vicinity. The annual dues for active members and for non-resident members shall be set by the Board of Managers. They are payable in advance by April 1, and any member more than one year in arrears may be dropped at any time by vote of the Board of Managers.3. An entrance fee set by the Board shall be paid by each new member.4. Active members who remove from the District of Columbia or vicinity in order to reside elsewhere shall be placed on the nonresident list. On their return to residence in the District of Columbia or vicinity, they shall automatically return to the active list.5. Members may be eligible for honorary status without regard to place of residence. They shall have the same privileges as other members, including the right to vote at meetings of the Club, but shall pay no dues.6. Long-standing members no longer able to participate in Club activities may request emeritus status. They shall retain the same privileges.
ARTICLE III—Offi cers
1. The offi cers of the Club shall consist of a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, and a Treasurer, each of whom shall be elected annually, and six Managers. Three of the Managers shall be elected each year for two-year terms and may not be reelected until at least one year after serving a term. These offi cers, together with the ex-presidents, shall constitute the Board of Managers; and wherever in these Bylaws the word Board occurs, it shall be taken to mean the Board of Managers.2. The President shall preside at meetings of the Club and of the Board. If the President is absent or incapacitated, presidential duties shall be performed by the Vice-President. The President shall, with the Secretary, sign as necessary all written contracts and obligations of the Club and attest its corporate seal, and shall perform such other duties as the Board may assign.3. The Secretary shall keep minutes of all meetings of the Club and of the Board, shall have charge of the records and correspondence of the Club, and, jointly with the President, shall sign as necessary all written contracts and obligations of the Club and attest its corporate seal.4. The Treasurer shall be the custodian of the fi scal assets of the Club, shall collect all dues, shall make disbursements in conformance with approved Club practices and special programs, and shall have authority upon approval of the Finance Committee to buy and sell securities and otherwise transfer fi scal assets of the
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Club. This authority shall serve as a standing resolution for future use. The Treasurer shall be bonded, the books shall be audited annually by a committee appointed by the President. The Treasurer shall present a current fi nancial statement at each annual meeting of the Club, and as otherwise called for by the President or the Board of Managers, and shall fi le other fi scal reports as required.5. The Board of Managers shall be empowered to elect new members to the Club and transact all business not otherwise provided for, and shall have power to fi ll vacancies in its own membership until the next succeeding annual election; it shall meet twice yearly, in October and March, for the election of new members and the transaction of other business, or at any other time at the call of the President, or the written request of any three of its members. Five shall constitute a quorum at any meeting of the Board.
ARTICLE IV—Standing Committees
1. There shall be fi ve standing committees: a committee on books and photographs, a committee on fi nance, a committee on house and grounds, a committee on membership, and a committee on research. The members of these committees shall be appointed annually by the President and shall perform their duties under the direction of the Board of Managers.2. The Committee on Books and Photographs shall have custody of the Club’s literature, photographs, and archives.3. The Finance Committee, together with the Treasurer, shall manage the Club’s fi scal assets, determine and carry out the Club’s investment program within policy guidelines and program objectives established by the Board of Managers, and evaluate for the Board major proposals for the Club’s program expenditures.4. The House and Grounds Committee shall have charge of purchasing furniture and supplies, engaging employees, keeping the property of the Club in good order and repair, and enforcing such regulations for the guidance of members and guests as the Board of Managers may authorize.5. The Committee on Membership shall review the nominations for new, active, emeritus, and honorary members, as provided in Article VI, Sections 2 and 3, and advise the Board of Managers as to their qualifi cations for election to membership.6. The Research Committee shall recommend research objectives and priorities to the Board of Managers; shall arrange for research programs to meet approved objectives and priorities; shall receive and approve all proposals for research programs, avoiding duplication and confl ict; shall monitor the progress of and record the results of approved research programs; and shall receive and review applications for research and publication grants and recommend approval or disapproval of such applications to the Board of Managers.
ARTICLE V—Meetings
1. The annual business meeting of the Club shall be held in April of each year, at the call of the Board of Managers, notice thereof to be submitted to all members at least one week in advance. At this meeting the President, the Secretary, and the Treasurer shall submit reports on the condition of the Club, and offi cers for the ensuing year shall be elected.2. Business meetings of the Club shall be held at such other times as the Board may determine, or at the call of any fi ve members of the Club. One-fourth of the total active membership shall constitute a quorum at any meeting of the Club.3. The traditional fi eld meetings of the Club may be held at such times and places as the Board of Managers may decide to be appropriate.
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ARTICLE VI—Elections
1. The offi cers of the Club shall be elected by ballot at each annual meeting, and shall serve until the close of the meeting at which their successors are chosen. A majority of the votes cast shall be necessary to elect.2. Active members shall be elected by the Board of Managers according to the following regulations: a. Candidates shall be proposed in writing to the Membership Committee through the Secretary of the Club, stating their qualifi cations, by not less than three members of the Club, at least one of whom is not a member of the Board of Managers. b. At least three weeks previous to each Board meeting at which members may be elected the Secretary shall mail to each member of the Club a list of the candidates proposed for active or honorary membership and recommended by the Membership Committee which may be acted upon at the next meeting of the Board of Managers. Members may address written comments about the candidates to the Board through the Secretary. c. Candidates for membership recommended by the Membership Committee shall be voted on by the Board of Managers in the order in which they were proposed, except that by unanimous consent, two names may be taken from anywhere in the list. Not more than fi ve new members may be elected at any one meeting of the Board. Successful candidates must receive affi rmative votes from two-thirds of the Board Members voting. Candidates not acted on shall retain their position on the list and may be acted on at subsequent meetings. Candidates rejected shall not again be proposed for membership within one year. d. A member-elect must pay the admission fee and one year’s dues within two months after election (unless the member-elect resides outside the limits of the United States). e. Immediately after an election the Secretary shall notify the sponsors of each candidate voted upon, and as promptly as possible shall send to each member of the Club a list of those who have become new members. f. Letters received by the Board in conformity to Section b shall be held within the confi dence of the Board, and when not longer needed shall be returned to the writers thereof.3. Honorary and emeritus members shall be elected by the Board of Managers according to the same regulations as for active members, except that active and nonresident members may be elected to honorary and emeritus membership by the Board of Managers at any time.
ARTICLE VII—Dissolution
1. Upon dissolution of the Club, the Board of Managers shall distribute the assets and accrued income of the Club, as determined by the Board of Managers, to one or more organizations which also comply with U.S. Internal Revenue requirements for scientifi c and educational status, or for exemption as agricultural, horticultural, or labor organizations.
ARTICLE VIII—Amendments
1. These Bylaws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the members present at any business meeting of the Club; but notice of the proposed amendment must be submitted in writing to all members of the Club at least two weeks in advance.
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USE OF THE PROPERTY(Rules authorized by the Board of Managers, March 27, 1984)
I. Any member who brings guests to the Island is responsible for ensuring reasonable use and maintenance of the cabin and surround ings. Members and guests using the cabin are responsible for removing litter and garbage.2. All members and guests shall register each day while on the Island and shall indicate each night spent there by placing an X to the left of their names. Members are urged to note in the register maxi mum and minimum daytime temperatures and interesting fi eld obser vations.3. A member shall notify the President or Secretary in advance that he will bring guests to the Island during the spring and fall outings.4. Dogs shall not be brought onto the property except on leash.5. Radios, television sets, or phonographs shall not be used on the property.6. No member or guest shall remove from the Island any plant or animal, if such removal detracts from the natural beauty of the prop erty or endangers the existence of the species there.7. No living tree shall be cut down or trimmed, except by permis sion of the House and Grounds Committee.8. No fi res shall be made on the property except in the places provided.9. Lights and fi res must be attended at all times and completely extinguished before leaving the cabin unoccupied.10. Members shall obtain their own fi rewood or replace in the wood shed and kitchen the amount used.11. All members should share the small amount of work necessary for the maintenance and improvement of the cabin and grounds. In structions for such work may be obtained from the House and Grounds Committee.12. A member who comes upon vandals should report the incident as soon as possible to the U.S. Park Police, Glen Echo (telephone num ber appears on the inspection duty reminder and on the annual Club roster), and, if possible, await the arrival of an offi cer. Also, report the incident to the Chairman or another member of the House and Grounds Committee.13. The House and Grounds Committee is charged with the enforce ment of these rules.
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FOUNDERS OF THE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB
Charles Louis PollardAdrian John PietersWilliam Palmer
Orator Fuller Cook, Jr.
William Perry Hay
Edgar Brown Guy N. Collins
William Ralph Maxon Edward Lyman Morris
No picture available for William McCally Pollock
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PEDRO ACEVEDO-RODRIGUEZ Pedro was born on December 24, 1954, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He grew up in the San Juan metro area but spent many of his summers in the central mountainous region of Puerto Rico. Through these long vacations, he developed an interest in wildlife and outdoors activities. This interest was further developed while in college in the less-developed city of Mayagüez (western side of Puerto Rico). After receiving a BS degree in biology in 1977, he moved back to San Juan and worked for some of the government agencies in charge of managing natural resources. During this period he developed a strong expertise in the Puerto Rican fl ora and wrote an illustrated fi eld guide to the vines of Puerto Rico. In the fall of 1984, he moved to New York to pursue graduate studies in plant systematics at City University of New York in collaboration with the New York Botanical Garden. During the Botanical Garden years, he became an expert in the taxonomy of the dicot family Sapindaceae and further developed his interest in Caribbean fl ora and vine taxonomy. In the spring of 1989, Pedro received a PhD degree and soon after started a new appointment as associate curator at the Smithsonian’s Department of Botany. During his tenure at the Smithsonian he published numerous papers on Sapindaceae taxonomy and Caribbean botany, including the book, Flora of St. John, US Virgin Islands. Current projects include a revision of the tribe Melicocceae (Sapindaceae) and a full-fl edged fi eld guide to the vines and climbing plants of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. He has done extensive fi eldwork in the lowlands of South America and the Greater Antilles. Pedro belongs to the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, the International Association of Plant Taxonomy, the Latin-American Botanical Society, the Organization for Flora Neotropica, and the Sociedad Botanica del Ecuador. He is associate editor for the Caribbean Journal of Sciences. Pedro was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1991. He terminated his membership in 2005.
LOWELL WILLIAM ADAMS Lowell was born on August 8, 1946, in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He grew up on a nearby farm and developed an early interest in wildlife and the outdoors. He received a BS degree in forestry and wildlife from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and MS and PhD degrees in zoology from Ohio State University, specializing in wildlife biology. Lowell began his professional career in 1976 as a wildlife biologist with the Urban Wildlife Research Center in Ellicott City, Maryland, where he worked for 20 years. His early research there focused on the effects of roads and highways on wildlife. Later he concentrated more specifi cally on urban wildlife ecology and human-wildlife relationships in the urban environment. In 1996, he formed Urban Wildlife Resources to serve as an information source and clearinghouse for urban wildlife-related matters. He is editor of The Urban Open Space Manager, a quarterly subscription newsletter
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published by Urban Wildlife Resources that is designed for land managers, planners, landscape architects, biologists, and others interested in wildlife and nature conservation in the metropolitan environment. Since 1994, he has served on the Maryland Wildlife Advisory Commission. He was elected vice chair of that commission in 1996. In 1987, Lowell accepted a part-time faculty appointment in the Natural Resources Management Program at the University of Maryland where he teaches three courses in wildlife ecology and management. He also serves on the graduate faculty at that institution, and his most recent graduate student research focuses on immunocontraception for controlling urban-suburban white-tailed deer populations and the effects of habitat fragmentation on population genetics of box turtles. Lowell works closely with graduate and undergraduate student interns in cooperative internship programs that he established with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and nearby Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Lowell was senior editor of two books on urban wildlife, Integrating Man and Nature in the Metropolitan Environment (1987) and Wildlife Conservation in Metropolitan Environments (1991), and senior author of Wildlife Reserves and Corridors in the Urban Environment, a book designed as a guide to ecological landscape planning and resource conservation, published in 1989. His most recent book, Urban Wildlife Habitats: A Landscape Perspective, was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1994. By invitation, he has participated in international urban ecology seminars in England, South Africa, and the Netherlands. In recognition of his achievements in the fi eld of urban wildlife ecology and management, Lowell received the exceptional service award of the National Institute for Urban Wildlife in 1986. He also received the Chevron Conservation Award in 1987 and the Daniel L. Leedy Urban Wildlife Conservation Award in 1992 for outstanding professional commitment and contributions to the conservation of wildlife and habitat in urban, suburban, and developing areas. Lowell has been active in The Wildlife Society since his undergraduate days at Virginia Tech where he was elected student chapter president in 1968. He served as secretary-treasurer (1983), president-elect (1984), and president (1985-86) of the Maryland Chapter. Most recently he served as chair of the Urban Wildlife Working Group of The Wildlife Society. He was certifi ed as a wildlife biologist in 1978 by The Wildlife Society. Lowell was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1984 and served as secretary from 1987 to 1995. His research on movement and mortality of translocated urban-suburban gray squirrels was supported by Washington Biologists’ Field Club grants in 1996 and 1997. In addition, he has served as Club sponsor for several University of Maryland graduate students awarded research grants from the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. He lives in Columbia, Maryland, with his wife Pat, and has a grown son, Chris.
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JOHN WARREN ALDRICH John was a son of Providence, Rhode Island. He was born there on February 23, 1906, went to the Providence public schools, and graduated from Brown University with a BS degree in biology in 1928. John was president of his class at Classical High School, and manager of the school’s football team in his senior year. In that year, 1923, John published his fi rst paper in Bird Lore, which was a literary gem on the mockingbird in Rhode Island. At Brown, he was a member of the swimming team and set a school record for the 200-yard breaststroke. While at Brown, John spent summers as a nature counselor at Camp Chewonki, Maine. After Brown, he went to the new Buffalo Museum of Science, where he served as a museum aid and assistant. At this time he met a young art student from Jamestown, New York, Roger Tory Peterson, whose enthusiasm and knowledge led John to recommend him to fi ll the vacated position at Camp Chewonki. In 1930, John accepted a position as biological assistant in charge of bird work at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where he worked under the guidance of Harry Oberholser of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey. In Cleveland he met Louise Kendall; they eloped to Niagara Falls in 1933.
While at Cleveland, John did fi eld work in Ohio, Michigan, Wyoming, Ontario, and Panama. He later felt that exposure to the sun in those fi eld days was responsible for numerous skin cancers. He attended Western Reserve University where he earned an MA degree in Biology and a PhD degree in 1937. On receipt of the latter degree, he was made curator of birds at the museum.
John was appointed to the position of ornithologist in the Fish and Wildlife Service, successor of the Biological Survey, in 1941. His duties included curation of the Fish and Wildlife Service collection of bird specimens at the National Museum of Natural History and fi eld investigations related to regional surveys of the United States and its territories. Identifi cation of feathers and bones of birds for the Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies, in connection with law violations, was one of his responsibilities, and he often was called upon to serve as an expert witness. In 1947, John was appointed chief of the Section of Distribution and Migration of Birds, which included the national bird banding program. In 1951, the mammal investigations of the Fish and Wildlife Service were joined with the similar bird research program, all under John’s supervision. John’s own research was divided between bird population studies and bird systematics, oriented toward better understanding of population segments or races. Although he retired from the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1972, he continued to work for many years as a retired annuitant. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1942, was president from 1959 to 1962, and became an honorary member in 1982. In 1985, John’s wife Louise died from diabetes. He continued to work until 1988 when he moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he was close to his daughter, Betsy, and her three grown children, and closer to his other daughter, Jane, who lived in California. John died from a stroke on May 3, 1995, in Tucson. A plaque was erected on a rock at Plummers Island as a lasting memorial to this dedicated ornithologist and member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club.
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DURWARD LEON ALLEN Durward was born in Uniondale, Indiana, on October 11, 1910. He was the son of Harley and Jennie M. LaTurner Allen. He married Dorothy Ellen Helling on September 23, 1935. His children are Stephen R., Harley W., and Susan E. He married Suzanne Grieser when he was 76 years old. He received an AB degree at the University of Michigan, 1932; PhD degree at Michigan State College, 1937; LHD honorary degree from Northern Michigan University in 1971; and a DA honorary degree from Purdue University in 1985. Durward was a game research biologist with the Michigan Department of Conservation from 1935 to 1946; a wildlife research biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, Maryland, from 1946 to 1950; and assistant chief of wildlife research U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C., from 1951 to 1954. He was a professor of wildlife ecology and natural resources at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, from 1954 until 1976, when he became a professor emeritus. He served on many committees in the Department of Interior and at various universities. He became an adjunct professor at Texas Tech University in 1982. He is the author of Michigan Fox Squirrel Management (1943), Pheasants Afi eld (1953), Our Wildlife Legacy (1954, 1962), The Life of Prairies and Plains (1967), and Wolves of Minong (1979, 1993). He was editor of Pheasants In North America (1956) and Land Use and Wildlife Resources (1970). Durward was the recipient of an honor award from the Anglers’ Club of New York in 1956. He was inducted into the Michigan Conservation Hall of Fame of the United Conservation Clubs in 1985. He was named Sagamore of the Wabash, Indiana Government, 1983, and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of The Wildlife Society, served as its president from 1956 to 1957 and became an honorary life member. He received the Annual Technical Publication award in 1946, the Annual Conservation Education Award 1955, and the Leopold Memorial Medal in 1968. He was a member of the American Society of Mammalogists, Ecological Society of America, American Institute of Biological Sciences, and the American Forestry Association (Board of Directors, 1983-88). He served actively with the George Wright Society, Wilderness Society, Outdoor Writers Association of America (Jade of Chiefs award, 1968; honorary life member), Nature Conservancy, Conservation Foundation, National Parks and Conservation Association, National Wildlife Federation (annual science award, 1985), Indiana Academy of Sciences (named lecturer of year, 1968), National Audubon Society (Board of Directors, 1975-84, Audubon Medal, 1990), George Bird Grinnell Society (charter member), Boone and Crockett Club (emeritus), Cosmos Club, and Explorers Club. He was elected to Sigma Xi, Phi Sigma, Xi Sigma Pi, and Seminariam Botanicum. Durward believed humanity emerged from the natural order and must continue to survive as a part of it. He further believed that professionals in any way concerned with the earth relationships of man have a prior obligation to serve generations of the future equally with those of the present. Durward died on October 17, 1997. Durward was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1950.
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PHILIP FARLEY ALLEN Philip was born on March 11, 1909, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He received a BS degree in zoology in 1930 from the University of New Hampshire. He also received an MS degree the same year with a thesis on the Ecology of Birds at the Isle of Shoals. From 1930 to 1932, Philip studied at the University of Michigan for a PhD degree in mammalogy and met all requirements for the degree. Philip was a biologist for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service from 1934 to 1938, and then served as regional biologist from 1938 to 1942. He also served as assistant chief biologist for the Soil Conservation Service in Washington, D.C., from 1941 to 1945, before becoming a regional biologist again from 1945 to 1969. Philip received the American Motors Conservation Award in 1968 in recognition of exceptional service in the cause of conservation. His main professional interest was in mammal communication, especially in primates and cetaceans. Philip was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1943. Philip’s wife’s name was Lempi and they had three children: David, James J., and Margaret Allan Boyle. After retirement Philip lived in Ithaca, New York. Philip died in 1983.
WILLIAM D. APPEL Bill was born on December 21, 1892. He lived his entire life, except for his college years, in Washington, D.C., and died in November of 1983. He received his BS degree in zoology and chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1917, and was awarded an Honorary MS degree from Lowell Textile Institute in 1952 and an Honorary ScD from North Carolina State College in 1960. Despite his early interest in zoology, Bill’s professional career revolved around dyes and textile sciences, and he spent most of his working life with the National Bureau of Standards, serving as chief of their Textiles Section and assistant chief of the Division of Organic and Fibrous Materials. Bill was a member of numerous scientifi c organizations and received a number of notable honors, including the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Gold Medal (1953), the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists’ Olney Medal (1954), and the American Society for Testing Materials’ Harold DeWill Smith Memorial Medal (1957). He also was included in Measures For Progress, the three volume history of the National Bureau of Standards published by the Department of Commerce, and is included in the Gallery of Distinguished Scientists maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. During World War II, Bill worked with all three branches of the Armed Forces, the War Production
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Board, the National Research Council, the Board of Economic Welfare, and the Offi ce of Price Administration to develop and produce textiles and dyes for military uses. The success of his Textile Section in these efforts of the National Bureau of Standards was so notable that it is mentioned in the chemistry section of OSRD: Science in World War II, 1948. Unfortunately, then available technology did not make it possible for them to develop “the bullet-proof and edible fabrics” that were sought. Bill was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1925. The database in the Smithsonian’s Entomology Department indicates he collected insects on the Island in July and August 1913.
SAMUEL P. ARCHINO Samuel was born in 1918. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1946 and was a non resident member in 1958 when the land of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club was transferred to the U.S. Park Service. Samuel died in 1969.
WILLIAM HARRIS ASHMEAD William was born on September 19, 1855, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Elizabeth and Captain Albert Ashmead and attended public and private schools in Philadelphia. William began his work life at the publishing house of J. B. Lippincott Company. Later he and his brother moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and opened a printing fi rm of their own. They published agricultural books along with more typical books, and soon began an agricultural weekly and a daily newspaper. William became interested in insects when he began editing the scientifi c part of the weekly. In 1880, he published his own work called Orange Insects: A Treatise on the Injurious and Benefi cial Insects Found on Orange Trees in Florida. In 1887, C. V. Riley recognized William’s talent for insects and appointed him as a special fi eld entomologist in the Division of Entomology, U.S. National Museum. He specialized in injurious insects of Florida. In 1888, he worked as an entomologist in the State Agricultural College and Experiment Station at Lake City, Florida, writing another publication on insects. The following year he went back to the Division of Entomology as an assistant entomologist and investigator. He spent 1890-91 studying in Berlin, Germany. In 1895, he was
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appointed the assistant curator of the Division of Insects in the U.S. National Museum. Meanwhile he attended school, receiving an MS degree from Florida State Agricultural College (now the University of Florida) and a PhD degree in 1904 from the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh). Beyond his initial interest in insects on oranges, William studied Hemiptera, ladybird beetles, gall wasps, and parasitic chalcids as well as other parasitic insects. Throughout his life he described 3,100 new species and 607 new genera. He published over 250 papers. William was one of the most enthusiastic members of the Entomological Society. He often presented material and contributed papers to the group. He also was a committed member of the Cosmos Club. He was constantly encouraging younger entomologists. He is remembered by W. Dwight Pierce as needing only three or four hours of sleep each night, outlasting everyone when Cosmos members got together to play cards, and as using money and checks as bookmarks. Pierce also commented that William would not fi le anything, but kept it all in piles on his desk, and yet somehow knew exactly where everything was. William died in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., on October 17, 1908, after a long illness. William was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated membership in 1908.
VERNON ORLANDO BAILEY Vernon, the fourth child of Hiram and Emily Bailey, was born on June 21, 1864, in Manchester, Michigan. His father was a mason by trade, but a woodsman and hunter by inclination, and when Vernon was about six years old, his pioneer family moved to Elk River, Minnesota, on the western frontier, a 700 mile journey of some months in a horse-drawn wagon. The only opportunity for schooling in a homestead, such as his parents established, was at home, but late in 1873 the families of the adjacent area built a schoolhouse and formal course work began. It was the collection of specimens that he forwarded from there to Washington that led to his employment by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, founder of the agency that was later to become the Bureau of Biological Survey. First appointed as a special fi eld agent in 1887, he soon became prominent among the corps of biologists then laying the foundations of a new governmental activity, and in 1890 he gained the title of chief fi eld naturalist, which he cherished until his retirement in 1933 and which no other person has held since. Practically every season of employment was marked by his fi eld work in some part of the United States, including intensive biological surveys of Texas, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Oregon, reported in the North American Fauna series, as well as many other studies described in other publications and in the popular articles he wrote so effectively for Nature Magazine and other periodicals. His colleagues considered his work in curating the Biological Survey’s collections and sources of information as especially noteworthy, though his writings made him known to more people. His contributions to the Biological Survey collection of mammals alone included about 13,000 specimens, a number of them new species. Dr. Merriam named a bobcat and a pocket mouse for Vernon. It was during the years of his government service that he designed and perfected the trap used widely in connection with restocking projects to capture the animals alive and unhurt, and also his foothold trap, which he later improved for use on a variety of mammals and birds. For both of these traps he received prizes awarded by the American Humane Association, and after his retirement he did extensive work with and for that organization. He died at his home in Washington, D.C., at the age of 77 on April 20, 1942. He was survived by
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his wife, Florence Merriam Bailey, herself a noted ornithologist, whom he married in 1904. Vernon’s outstanding publications included Beaver Habitat and Experiments in Beaver Culture, A Biological Survey of North Dakota, Biological Survey of Texas, Life Zones and Crop Zones of New Mexico, Mammals of New Mexico, The Mammals and Life Zones of Oregon, Revision of the Pocket Gophers of the Genus Thomomys, Cave Life of Kentucky, and Animal Life of the Carlsbad Caverns. There were many others, among them infl uential articles for general readers with such titles as Dwellers in the Desert, Humane Traps, Ways of the Beaver People, Animal Friends of the High Sierra, and How to Become a Naturalist, and such collaborations with Mrs. Bailey as the volume on Wild Animals of Glacier National Park, in which he wrote of the mammals and she of the birds. Vernon was honored in many formal associations with his colleagues. He was a founder and past president of the American Society of Mammalogists, member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, past president of the Biological Society of Washington, president of the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and member of the Cooper Ornithological Society, Washington Academy of Sciences, the American Forestry Association, and other societies interested in wildlife and conservation. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1909, and terminated membership in 1918.
CARLETON ROY BALL Carleton was born on June 12, 1873, in Little Rock, Iowa. He attended college in Ames, Iowa, and received a BS degree in 1896, an MS degree in 1899, and a DSc degree hon. causa in 1920. He taught botany there from 1896 to 1898 when he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture Division of Agrostology. There he initiated experiments in grain sorghums and broom corn, classifi ed and named wheat varieties from 1914 to 1918, and was in charge of the Division of Cereal Crops and Diseases of the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1918 to 1929. He specialized in the willows (genus Salix). Carleton was a member of many scientifi c organizations, including the Southern Appalachian Botanical Club. He was secretary (1910-14) and president (1916) of the Agronomy Society, and Treasurer (1905) and vice-president (1919) of the Botanical Society of America. Carleton was a member and executive secretary of U.S. Department of Agriculture correlation committees working with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Southern Association of Land Grant Colleges. Carleton was forever an advocate of better Federal State cooperation. He died on February 2, 1958, at the age of 84 in Washington, D.C. The death of Carleton brought to an end a lifetime of service to his country and to his friends. His accomplishments as botanist, cerealist, agronomist, and administrative coordinator on many executive committees were well known by his contemporaries. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated membership in 1907.
WINSTON EDGAR BANKO
Winston was born on May 22, 1920, in Spokane, Washington, and was blessed with an inherent love of all wild creatures. By 12 years of age he was signing notes to family members as “The Naturalist.” Many happy hours were spent afi eld in foothills and river bottoms of the Cascade Mountains near his boyhood home in Yakima. Reading such books as Lives of The Hunted by Ernest Thompson Seton and Game Management by Aldo Leopold provided intellectual enrichment at critical junctures. His wildlife writing skills developed spontaneously in Yakima High School, where he graduated in 1938. Winston, known by friends as Win, enrolled in the Fish and Game curriculum at Oregon State College in
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1939. Following election in 1941 to Phi Sigma, the national biological science honorary society, Win graduated from OSC in 1943. After three years in the U.S. Navy during World War II he was employed as a game biologist by the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks in 1946 and as Refuge Manager of the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Montana by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1948. After nine years of fi eld and literature research, Winston authored The Trumpeter Swan: Its History, Habits and Population in the United States. This monograph was fi rst published by the Department of Interior in 1960 as No. 63 in the North America Fauna Series. It subsequently was reprinted, and following the depletion of the supply, republished by the University of Nebraska Press, thereby extending its availability to more than 30 years. Following Dr. Frank Craighead as manager of the over two million acre Desert Game Range in southern Nevada in 1957, Win moved in the following year to occupy the position of chief, Section of Wildlife Management, Branch of Wildlife Refuges, in the Washington, D.C., offi ce of the Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1963, the Department of Interior detailed Win to assist Dr. Philip Humphrey, Director, Pacifi c Ocean Biological Survey Program, Division of Birds, Smithsonian Institution. Win’s principal duty at the Smithsonian was to develop and implement a biological information search and retrieval system for use by some 25 resident scientists reporting results of fi eld work on various oceanic islands. In returning to duty with the Fish and Wildlife Service following his two-year exposure to the ornithology of Central Pacifi c islands, Win requested transfer to the Branch of Wildlife Research and reassignment to Hawaii. Arriving in Honolulu in 1965, Win thus became the fi rst federal fi eld biologist assigned to work exclusively on the preservation of endangered species. Rediscovery in 1967 of the Nukupuu (Hemignathus lucidus affi nis), unreported since 1896, subsequently received national attention (Time magazine, March 28, 1969). A major manuscript correlating extinction of Hawaiian forest birds with depletion of food supply by alien insectivores, coauthored by undergraduate son Paul (PhD, Wildlife Science, University of Washington, 1988), was completed and submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service for publication. After retirement from the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1977, Winston was successful in obtaining a grant from the National Park Service to bring his work to a successful conclusion. Bolstered by the typing skills of his wife Connie, Win wrote extensive works over the next 15 years dealing with Hawaiian bird bibliography and 7,261 specimens in museum collections. More than 9,800 records of endemic bird sightings from 1778 to 1975 were extracted from the literature and other eclectic sources and issued from 1980 to 1990. When contacted in 2006, Win was in the process of completing a major work on the historical ecology of native Hawaiian birds from 1778 to 1983. Win was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1959 and was an active member until 1977. He has been a non-resident since moving from the area. Fellowship at Club meetings on Plummers Island remain among Win’s fondest recollections of his Washington experience.
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RICHARD CHARLES BANKS Dick was born in Steubenville, Ohio, on April 19, 1931. His father enjoyed the outdoors and the family often went on drives in the country and walks in the woods. In the early 1940s, a high school biology teacher in nearby Amsterdam, Ohio, began leading bird walks locally and collected birds and other wildlife. Dick was fascinated with the teacher’s collection of specimens from the Amazon basin. Dick’s father, a construction engineer in a steel mill, became an excellent amateur naturalist and a member of the Wilson Ornithological Society. Dick met many professional ornithologists and conservationists through his dad. Dick was an active birder and Eagle Scout in high school. He graduated in 1949 and went to Ohio State University to major in wildlife conservation. Dick was in the ROTC at Ohio State, and shortly after graduation in 1953 went on active duty with the Army, serving about a year in post-war Korea. His Reserve Offi cer Training Corps training was in artillery, but bad eyes kept him out of that branch and his biological training qualifi ed him for the Medical Service Corps in a preventive medicine unit in Korea. Dick collected some birds and herps in Korea. Returning from the military in 1955, Dick entered graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, and obtained a position as curatorial assistant in birds in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. He studied white-crowned sparrows, receiving his MA and PhD degrees under the guidance of Alden H. Miller. In Dick’s last year or so at Berkeley on a trip to Cerralvo Island in the Gulf of California, he noted some interesting differences in some of the birds he collected, and applied for and received a small National Science Foundation grant to continue studies on that island. He named three subspecies of birds from the island. His interest in Baja California led to the offer of a job as curator of birds and mammals at the San Diego Museum of Natural History in 1962. In 1966, Dick was appointed chief of the bird section of the Bird and Mammal Labs of the Fish and Wildlife Service in the National Museum of Natural History. He became director of the labs after the retirement of Richard H. Manville. Except for a brief stint as a staff specialist in the Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Wildlife Research, he has continued to serve as a curator of the Biological Survey, U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, portion of the U.S. National Museum bird collection. Dick offi cially retired in 2005 but maintained an offi ce and remained active at the Museum. Dick became active in the American Ornithologists’ Union while in San Diego. He was elected secretary in 1969. He served as president from 1994 to 1996, having already served as president of the Wilson Ornithological Society and, much earlier, the Biological Society of Washington. (His father gave up his Wilson Society membership the year Dick became president, never quite realizing the coincidence.) In 1976, he suggested that the American Ornithologists’ Union publish a quarterly newsletter, which soon became the bimonthly Ornithological Newsletter circulated to some 5,000 ornithologists with him as editor. He became a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union Committee on Classifi cation and Nomenclature in 1971, for publication of the 6th edition of the Check-list of North American Birds in 1983. He became chair of the committee in
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1996 and oversaw publication of the 7th edition in 1997. In 1992, he was responsible for the formation of the Ornithological Council, a non-profi t organization to provide scientifi c information about birds and the science of ornithology. In 1992, Dick was made an honorary member of the Cooper Ornithological Society. In 1967, Dick married Gladys Sparks, known to most as “Chuck,” whom he met in San Diego. They have two sons, Randy and David. Dick was introduced to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1966 and was elected to membership in 1967. He served on the Board of Managers several times, on the membership and research committees, chaired the centennial committee, and was Club president from 1990 to 1993.
HERBERT SPENCER BARBER Herbert was born on April 12, 1882, in Yankton, South Dakota, to Amherst Willoughby and Velma Barber. His father, a civil engineer, was greatly interested in natural sciences. He grew up attending public schools in Orlando, Florida, and then attended high school for two years in Washington, D.C. Beyond this he received very little formal education, although he did take some night classes. As a child he had become interested in insects, and in 1898 he worked with Dr. E. A. Schwartz as assistant preparator of insects in the National Museum in Washington. He held his position until 1902 and came back again from 1904 to 1908. During the years from 1902 to 1904, he studied cotton insects in southern fi elds under the Bureau of Entomology in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Starting in 1908, he worked as a specialist on beetles in the Division of Insect Identifi cation of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Until Dr. Schwartz died in 1928, Herbert continued to work closely with him at the National Museum. In 1913, Herbert published two papers about Micromalthus debilis Leconte, a small wood-boring beetle. He had discovered that there were several distinct types of larvae in this species and that under certain conditions larvae will produce both eggs and live larvae. This has since been confi rmed by other scientists, but initially it was doubted by many entomologists. This was potentially his greatest single discovery, which occurred only fi fteen years after he had his fi rst exposure to entomological work. Herbert was a naturalist with wide interests. He was an internationally recognized authority on chrysomelid, bruchid, and lampyrid beetles and often was consulted for his knowledge of Coleoptera as well as many other subjects. He traveled to collect insects to many parts of the United States, Mexico, and Guatemala. Herbert belonged to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Entomological Society of Washington, the Coleopterists’s Society, the Entomological Society of America, the American Association of Economic Entomologists, the Biological Society of Washington, the Washington Academy of Sciences, and the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. As a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Herbert spent a lot of time on Plummers Island studying the beetles there with Dr. Schwartz. Herbert died on June 1, 1950.
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EDWARD M. BARROWSEdd was born in 1946 in Detroit, Michigan, and has
always been interested in nature. He lived in southern Michigan on a small farm with a Victorian garden until he was six years old. Before he entered kindergarten, he marveled at earthworms drowning in puddles, thousands of red fl owers of silver maples on the ground after spring storms, and alfalfa fi elds teeming with insects in the summer. He planted seeds, dug up tulip plants to look at their bulbs, and collected thousands of ladybird beetles in jars.
One day at lunchtime in the fi rst grade, he opened his lunch bucket and found a bag of recently excavated tulip bulbs. Evidently, his mother put them in there perhaps to scold him for digging them out of her garden. A schoolmate asked him about the bulbs, and he said, “It’s a long story.” He also enjoyed watching muskrats, beetles, butterfl ies, and other animals with his cousins. It was highly fortunate that his family moved to Tampa, Florida, in 1952, when it was still a sleepy place. He continued gardening and nature observations there, even having an ant colony in his family’s living room. He grew azaleas, begonias, hibiscus, palm trees, phlox, onions, radishes, tomatoes, and many other kinds of plants including the infamous punk tree, which is now a major pest in Florida. Edd collected insects and snakes, and had an absolutely wonderful time in the countryside.
He attended Twin Lakes Elementary School, which had a large botanic garden planted by its principal. His family returned to Michigan in 1959, where he resumed gardening and nature observations, starting a series of paintings of native plants of southern Michigan and an arthropod collection. At the University of Michigan, he had a joyous time as a botany-zoology co-major. He attended classes at the University of Michigan Biological Station in northern Michigan, where he took an entomology course with Professor Robert E. Beer, who told him, “Everything you want is at the University of Kansas.” Consequently, he entered Kansas University in 1968, where he worked with professor Charles D. Michener on bee sociality. In Kansas, Edd visited beautiful prairie remnants as much as he could.
In 1975, he became an assistant professor at Georgetown University, being drawn to the area especially because of the Smithsonian Institution and the wonders of the Potomac Valley. While at Georgetown University where he still works, he taught an assortment of courses including animal behavior, entomology, forest ecology, and the history of life. His research has involved the ecology, evolution, and behavior of arthropods, birds, and plants and scientifi c communication and terminology. He published scores of scientifi c papers and a dictionary of biological concepts and terms. His current main projects are the biodiversity of the Washington, D.C., area including a public website regarding this subject and a popular book called Nature, Gardens, and Georgetown, which is about the history of nature and gardens at Georgetown University and adjacent areas. He is a past president of the Entomological Society of Washington and currently an elected offi cer of the Glen Echo Heights Citizens’ Association. He is spearheading a project to reintroduce Maryland’s State Insect, the colorful Baltimore checkerspot, and its local host plant, white turtlehead, into his neighborhood.
He was elected into the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2006, just a few days before the spring shad bake and was assigned the task of bringing potatoes!
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HARLEY HARRIS BARTLETT Harley was born on March 9, 1886, in Anaconda, Montana. His family moved to Indiana in 1899, where he attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis. He went to Harvard in 1904, working as an assistant to B. L. Robinson and M. L. Fernald, where in 1908 he earned an AB degree cum laude in chemistry. In 1909, he came to Washington with the Bureau of Plant Industry as a chemical biologist. During this time he worked on the genetics of Oenothera. In 1915, he became assistant professor of botany at the University of Michigan, full professor in 1921, head of the Botany Department from 1922 to 1947, and Director of the Botanical Garden from 1919 to 1955. In 1918, he explored and botanized in Sumatra (mastering the Batak language!) with the U.S. Rubber Company. He also collected in Formosa, Guatemala, British Honduras, Philippines, Panama, Haiti, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. He died of heart failure February 21, 1960, at the age of 73 at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Harley was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1911 and maintained his membership until his death.
PAUL BARTSCH Paul was born on August 14, 1871, in Silesia, Germany (now Poland). When he was 10 years old his family moved to the USA and settled in Missouri and later in Iowa. Paul developed an interest in nature in general, and birds in particular, as a youth, while roaming the fi elds and the Mississippi River bottoms near his home. He attended the State University of Iowa, earning a BS degree in 1896, an MS degree in 1899, and a PhD degree in 1905. George Washington University granted him an honorary DSc degree in 1937. One of his fi rst notable scientifi c experiences was as a Smithsonian naturalist aboard the “Albatross” on an expedition to the Philippines from 1907 to 1908. He became the director of breeding experiments with Cerions in the Florida Keys that were performed under the Carnegie and Smithsonian Institutions. In 1912, Paul set off on a series of scientifi c explorations that lasted until 1933. He studied in the Gulf of California, the Bahamas, western Mexico, Florida, Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, all West Indies islands between Puerto Rico and Trinidad, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Throughout his life, Paul held many important positions. He taught animal history at Howard University from 1899 to 1936, was a professor of zoology at George Washington University for 45 years (1900-45), and became professor emeritus in 1946. He was a curator in the Division of Mollusks of the U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian Institution from 1914 to 1946. He was the Smithsonian’s delegate to the second Pan-American Scientifi c Congress held in
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Washington in 1916, a delegate to the fi rst Pan-Pacifi c Scientifi c Congress held in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1920. Paul provided a poison gas detector for the Chemical Warfare Service in 1918. In 1932, Paul was the director of the Johnson Smithsonian Deep Sea Expedition to Puerto Rico, as well as director of the Smithsonian Roebling Exploring Expedition of 1937. Paul was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Washington Academy of Science, Biological Society of Washington, American Ornithologists’ Union, American Association of Anatomists, American Society of Zoologists, American Genetic Association, Malacologists Association of Great Britain and Ireland, American Malacologists Society, and Sigma Xi. He had a lifelong interest in plants and collected many specimens and developed a large native plant garden at his estate, Lebanon, along Pohick Bay after his retirement. He was a naturalist of the old school who became something of a celebrity and legend in the Washington area. He has been credited with having been the fi rst since John James Audubon to band birds. Paul was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1913 and was selected for honorary member status in 1949. Paul died on April 24, 1960, and is buried in Washington, D.C.
SUZANNE WELLINGTON TUBBY BATRA Suzanne was born on December 15, 1937, at the Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital (yes, THE Fifth Avenue) in New York City. Although expected to become a lady, as all her female relatives had, she had other plans. Suzanne discovered the joys of catching (and tasting) insects as soon as she could crawl. Her father, Roger W. Tubby, was a newspaperman and politician, becoming President Truman’s press secretary; later he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at Geneva during the Kennedy administration. Her mother, Anne W. Tubby, was a gracious hostess and mother of four (Suzanne the eldest). As Suzanne grew up, she independently learned biology, natural history, and outdoor sports such as fi shing and hunting. Girls in the 1940s and ‘50s were not supposed to enjoy such unladylike things; however, Suzanne decided to take up the challenge and became profi cient in such activities. Suzanne attended public schools in Maryland and New York, graduating from Saranac Lake (New York) High School in 1956. She had appreciated the family’s move to the wild Adirondack Mountains following the Republican takeover in Washington. Following high school, Suzanne attended Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, obtaining a BA in zoology in 1960. That same year she married her husband of 39 years, Dr. Lekh R. Batra. Originally from India, he was her botany professor and challenged her to continue her study of science. They had two children: daughter Mira, born in 1964 is a medical doctor, and son Persa, born in 1967 is a PhD scientist in climate change research. After Swarthmore, Suzanne entered the University of Kansas’ entomology department, studying bees with Dr. C. D. Michener. She earned a PhD degree in 1964 with sociobiology of sweat bees as her thesis topic. The Batras worked at the University until 1967 when Lekh took a position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland. Suzanne stayed home with the children until 1974 when she also joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Research subjects have included bees and pollination, biological control of weeds, symbiotic and social insects, insect mass rearing and management, insect ecology and behavior, and
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entomogenous fungi. Suzanne has authored over 140 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and also contributed many technical reviews, book chapters, and popular articles on science. She has been a member of national and international professional societies, boards, and commissions. She has traveled widely, especially in Asia, Europe, and North America. She appreciates rural life and natural beauty, and also the fi ne arts. Suzanne retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in June 1999, a few days after her husband’s unexpected death from a stroke. She continues to study bees as a Smithsonian Institution Research Associate. She also consults on bee behavior and biology, and plans to write an entertaining, illustrated book about the lives and loves of busy bees. Suzanne was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000.
HENRY ELWOOD BAUM Henry was born on April 6, 1881, in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Central High School in 1900 and shortly after graduation joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work under O. F. Cook in the Offi ce of Tropical Agriculture. He published articles on breadfruit (Plant World October, November, December, 1903; Science II, 18: 439. 1903) and made a catalogue of the library of C. L. Pollard, who was the editor of Plant World. He died on December 20, 1903, at the age of 22, to the dismay of his colleagues, who were impressed with his promise. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901, took part in building the cabin, and was active until his fi nal sickness.
WILLIAM RENWICK BEATTIE William was born on December 17, 1870, in Zanesville, Ohio. He received his BS and MS degrees from Ohio State University. He worked as an assistant botanist for Ohio State from 1896 to 1898, and as an assistant horticulturist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1899 to 1912. William also was an agriculture and industrial commissioner for St. Louis and Southwest region from 1912 to 1918, senior horticulturist for the Bureau of Plant Industry from 1918 to 1929, senior horticulturist from 1929 to 1940, and collaborator in 1940. William belonged to numerous organizations including the Vegetable Growers Association and the Biological Society of Washington. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and served on the site selection committee in 1901, the auditing committee from 1902 to 1903, and the photography committee from 1903 to 1904. He was awarded an honorary membership in 1936. William died in 1954 at the age of 84.
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JAMES EVERARD BENEDICT James was born on February 4, 1885, in Washington, D.C., and attended Central High School where he was an all-city football player. In 1906, he graduated from the Biltmore Forestry School in North Carolina. He ran a commercial seed-testing laboratory from 1913 to 1963 at 945 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. (site acquired in 1963 for the FBI Building). He collected plant specimens in the local area and in the southeast. During the 1930s and 1940s he taught botany at George Washington University and conducted an annual students’ hike through Rock Creek Park. James was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1934, served as president from 1942 to 1945, and was active until his death on September 3, 1969, which occurred during surgery at the age of 84.
JACK HOLMES BERRYMAN Jack was born on July 28, 1921, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has two grown children: Marjorie Porter and Richard. He married June Featherstone, a former classmate at Westminster College, in 1982. June had been actively involved in Jack’s work and was well known in wildlife circles. Jack received an AA degree from Westminster College in Salt Lake City in 1940 and a BS degree and MS degree in ecology from the University of Utah in 1947. His education and career were interrupted by World War II during which he served in the U.S. Navy from 1941 to 1945 on assignment to the U.S. Marine Corps. He received the Silver Star and the Purple Heart with cluster during action in the Mariana Islands. He began his professional career with the Utah State Department of Fish and Game in 1947, where he served as acting federal aid coordinator working in big game research and on land requisition and development projects. In 1950, he moved to the Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque working in wildlife restoration in the eight southwestern states. In 1953, he transferred to Minneapolis doing similar work in the eleven Midwest and Lake States. In 1959, he left the Fish and Wildlife Service to initiate Utah’s fi rst wildlife extension project at Utah State University, where he served as associate professor in the College of Natural Resources. In 1965, he returned to the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C., to launch the Division of Wildlife Services, redirect the animal control activities, and begin programs in wildlife enhancement and pesticide appraisal and monitoring. He subsequently became chief of the Divisions of Technical Assistance and later of the new Offi ce
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of Extension Education. He retired from the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1978. In 1979, Jack was selected as executive vice president of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. He worked with the state, provincial, and federal fi sh and wildlife agencies of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to represent the Association on legislative, legal, and regulatory matters. He retired as executive vice president in 1988 and was appointed counselor emeritus and continued to serve in a variety of ways. Jack was a member of a number of professional and civic organizations including The Wildlife Society, the American Fisheries Society, the American Forestry Association, the Boone and Crocket Club, and the Cosmos Club. He had about 200 publications. He received many honors including the Minnesota Award, American Motors Professional Award, U.S. Department of Interior Distinguished Service Medal, the Seth Gordon Award, International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, National Wildlife Federation Conservation Achievement Award, Hornaday Conservation Award, and the Aldo Leopold Award of The Wildlife Society. In 1993, Utah State University dedicated the Jack H. Berryman Institute for Wildlife Damage Management, and Jack served on its advisory panel. Jack was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1967, was on the Board of Managers from 1988 to 1990, and became an emeritus member in 1996. He and his wife June lived in Westminster, Virginia, at Lake Ridge retirement community, until he died in 1998.
SIDNEY FAY BLAKE Sidney was born on August 31, 1892, in Stoughton, Massachusetts. In 1910, at the age of 18, he had three botanical papers published. He graduated from Harvard University with an AB degree in 1912 and an AM degree in 1913. He went to Europe on a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, 1913-14, and got a PhD degree in 1917 from Harvard. He was appointed assistant botanist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1918 ($1,800 per year) and traveled in Guatemala and Honduras. He was famous for his work with the family Asteraceae and, more particularly, his Geographical Guide to the Floras of the World (1942 and 1960). He was recording secretary of the Biological Society of Washington from the year he was elected (1923) to his death. He died of a heart attack on December 31, 1959, at the age 67 in his offi ce at Beltsville, Maryland. Sidney was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1924 and served as president from 1931 to 1934.
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DAVID EDWARD BLOCKSTEIN David was born on January 1, 1956, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up with a strong interest in birds and other wildlife. This interest was sparked by his fi fth grade teacher and nurtured through his experiences in the Boy Scouts of America, including becoming an Eagle Scout and a camp counselor. Joseph Hickey, his undergraduate advisor in wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he received his BS degree in 1978, helped turn his interests from avocational to scientifi c and professional. David earned an MS degree and PhD degree in ecology and behavioral biology from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where his research on reproductive ecology of mourning doves attempted to reach the high standards of his advisor Harrison (Bud) Tordoff. He did post-doctoral work with Stan Temple in wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he conducted conservation ecology studies of endangered pigeons and doves in Western Samoa and Grenada. David also conducted extensive library research on the extinct passenger pigeon. David is a senior scientist with the National Council for Science and the Environment, a nonpartisan organization of scientists, environmentalists, business people, and policymakers with a mission to improve the scientifi c basis of environmental decision making. In 1990, David joined Council and was the organization’s fi rst executive director. As the 1987-88 Congressional science fellow of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and American Society of Zoology, David worked with the House of Representatives Environment Subcommittee of the Science Committee to prepare the National Biological Diversity Conservation and Environmental Research Act. David has conducted research on conservation of tropical pigeons and doves and on population and community ecology of forest birds. He is the chair of the Ornithological Council and is a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union. David has worked on a wide range of policy issues including increasing the representation of minorities in science, mechanisms to improve the linkage between science and decision making on environmental issues, and electronic processes to communicate scientifi c information on the environment. He has delivered more than 50 public lectures, has written more than 20 scientifi c papers, and is a frequent contributor to both technical and popular literature about science and environmental policy. David is married to Debra Prybyla who is a public policy analyst for the World Wildlife Fund. They have two children: Joshua, born in 1995 and Eva, born in 1997. Both Joshua and Eva are interested in birds and other animals. Their menagerie includes an indoor cat, tropical fi sh, a local snake, a formerly feral mouse, and an ever-changing variety of insects. David was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000.
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MICHAEL A. BOGAN Mike was born in Kansas City, Kansas, on September 29, 1941, and traces his interest in natural resources and museums to reading about explorers and archeologists in Junior Natural History magazine, published by the American Museum of Natural History. Mike was fortunate in being able to travel as a child and that also infl uenced his career choice. Mike received his BS degree in biology at Baker University in 1964 and his MS degree in zoology at Fort Hays State University in 1966. At Fort Hays he worked with Dr. Gene Fleharty, and it was at Hays that he fi rst worked on bats. He went to the University of New Mexico and specialized on bats with Dr. Jim Findley and received his PhD degree in biology in 1973. After getting his PhD degree, he went to work with the Research Division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a Curator of Mammals at the Smithsonian Institution. He says he loved working with scientifi c collections, and his research allowed him to travel to a variety of places and to work in many domestic and foreign museums. However, as much as he loved the Smithsonian, he missed the West and in 1981 moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, as a research supervisor, mammal curator, and, ultimately, assistant director with the Mid-continent Ecological Science Center (and its predecessors). From there he started conducting studies of mammals on the Colorado Plateau. In 1993, he moved (back) to Albuquerque, where he became project leader for the U.S. Geological Survey Aridlands Station and curator in the Museum of Southwestern Biology. He also became a research professor in the Department of Biology at the University of New Mexico. Mike continued his research on bats and other mammals of the Southwest and Colorado Plateau. He has published over 100 papers on mammals and a signifi cant number of these have been on bats. Most recently he published a book chapter on the vespertilionid bats of northwestern Mexico as part of a compendium on mammals of that area. He is a taxonomic specialist on the genus Myotis and lately has been attaching miniaturized radio transmitters to southwestern bats as a part of studies of bat roosting ecology. He is a member of several scientifi c societies, including the American Society of Mammalogists and Southwestern Association of Naturalists, and is co-chair of the National Workshop on Monitoring Trends in U.S. Bat Populations, Agency Representative on Status and Trends of Western Bats, co-founder of the National Bat Population Database, U.S. Geological Survey, and a member of the steering committee, Bat Conservation and Mining Interactive Forum. Mike was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1977 and for personal reasons terminated membership in 1984. Mike says some of his fondest memories of the Washington, D.C., area were the outings with the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, in particular the spring and fall cookouts on Plummers Island. Mike was known to take a hand at cooking spuds and turning shad, but particularly relished the products of the sour mash, the historical atmosphere of the cabin and Island, and the warm companionship with others engaged in similar pursuits and pleasures.
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DARYL JOHN BONESS Daryl was born on March 22, 1950, in Neenah, Wisconsin. He left high school for college thinking he wanted to be a high school biology teacher. However, after receiving a BA degree in psychology and biology at Cornell College in Iowa, he changed his focus and thought he might want to become a clinical psychologist. Still uncertain, he decided to do an MA degree in human psychophysiology at Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. During his master’s work he realized that his real interest was in animal behavior. After completing his MA degree in 1973, he went into a PhD program in a psychology department because of his greater strength and training in psychology, but found an advisor that supported his interest in animal behavior from an evolutionary and ecological perspective. He received his PhD degree from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1979. Daryl’s PhD thesis on the mating system of gray seals was the beginning of a career that focused on the evolution and ecology of reproductive strategies in pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses). He joined the curatorial staff at the National Zoological Park of the Smithsonian Institution in 1978 specifi cally to manage the new aquatic mammal facilities completed that year. In 1985, he moved into a full-time research position in the Zoo’s Department of Zoological Research, of which he became the head in 1996. Over the past 25 years, Daryl has made a concerted effort to study as many pinniped species as possible, but has maintained a long-term study of grey and harbor seals on Sable Island, Nova Scotia. He has published on 12 of the 31 species of pinnipeds, from one end of the globe to the other. A characteristic of his work is to incorporate a team approach, bringing various disciplines (e.g., physiology, behavior, genetics and population biology) together to address questions. In the 1980s, he shifted his focus from male reproductive strategies to female strategies, but has since renewed efforts in examining alternative male strategies. The near-unique ecological situation of pinnipeds breeding on land but feeding at sea provides the opportunity for the evolution of extreme patterns in reproduction. One example of this is the hooded seal, which breeds on pack ice. Daryl and Canadian colleagues found that the lactation period of hooded seal females was only four days long, which is the shortest of any mammal. Females feed their pups milk that contains 61% fat so pups can gain 7 kg per day to build a blubber layer that allows them to survive until they learn to feed several weeks later. Daryl has published over 85 articles in peer-reviewed journals and books. He has written major review papers on the evolution of lactation strategies in pinnipeds, reproductive and life history strategies of marine mammals, the ecological determinants of mating systems in pinnipeds, and the management of water quality in exhibits for captive aquatic mammals. Since 1995, he has served on the Committee of Scientifi c Advisors to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, a commission that advises the President on marine mammal issues. He has served on numerous panels and committees that review both research and management programs of various agencies tasked with managing marine mammal populations. Daryl served as an associate editor for the journal Marine Mammal Science. Daryl was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1998 and served on the board of managers in 1998-2000.
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MAURICE KIRBY BRADY Maurice was born in 1904. He was a herpetologist and also had a private business. Maurice was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1928 and served as president from 1954 to 1956. He died on August 28, 1958.
NATHANIEL LORD BRITTON Nathaniel was born on January 15, 1859, in New York on Staten Island, New York. He joined the Torrey Botanical Club in 1877 at the age of 19 and immediately began publishing papers on plants. Columbia College’s School of Mines gave him an engineer of mines degree in 1879. He taught as an assistant in geology and botany and, for fi ve years, was assistant geologist for the Geological Survey of New Jersey. In 1881, Columbia College awarded him a PhD degree with a botanical thesis. He edited the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club from 1888 to 1898. During this time he laid the groundwork for Britton & Brown’s three volume Illustrated Flora of the Northern States and Canada (1896-98) and launched the New York Botanic Garden in 1891. By 1896, he resigned his Columbia professorship, becoming a professor emeritus at the age of 37, and became director-in-chief of the Garden. By 1901, plans were completed for a North American Flora. He was a prime mover in framing the Brittonian Codes that resulted in schism in nomenclature that lasted almost 25 years until 1930 when his basic ideas (like the type method) prevailed. Britton and Rose published their massive Cactaceae (1919-23). That work and his work on the Flora of Porto Rico were extremely infl uential. He retired in 1929 at the age of 71 and died on June 25, 1934, at the age of 75 in New York City. Nathaniel was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1904 and was an honorary member from 1905 until his death.
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PAUL BROUHA Paul was born on January 8, 1946, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised in Canada, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. He became interested in fi sh and fi shing while spending summers on the farm in northeastern Vermont because brook trout were numerous and easy to catch (and it was a hell of a lot better than weeding the garden!). He brought minnow buckets of small brookies back from a nearby stream and stocked them in the spring-fed pond next to the house. His reward was larger and more accessible brook trout in a couple years! Voila, the birth of a fi sh manager! Paul received his BS degree from Pennsylvania State University. After serving as a pilot with the U.S. Air Force, he received his MS degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1974 and began his career in fi sheries as assistant area fi sheries manager with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. In 1977, he joined the U.S. Forest Service as a fi shery biologist in Redding, California, and in 1981 he accepted the position of regional fi sheries program manager in Missoula, Montana. In 1984, Paul was promoted to national fi sheries program manager in the Forest Service in the Washington, D.C., offi ce. In that position he started the “Rise to the Future” initiative as part of his responsibilities for nationwide programs for the protection, management, and utilization of fi sheries and closely related riparian and wetland resources on national forests and grasslands. As deputy director starting in 1986 and then as executive director of the American Fisheries Society from 1991 to 1998, Paul’s responsibilities included Society management, policy and budget advocacy, and congressional and conservation group liaison. Paul became associate deputy chief for the National Forest System in October 1998 and director, Strategic Planning and Resource Assessment in 2000. Paul has principle responsibility for the management of all activities involved in the broad programs of ecosystem management as well as the programs of range, forest, watershed and air, and wildlife, fi sh, and rare plants management across the 191 million acres of National forests and grasslands. Paul has been active in developing national, scientifi c, and technical natural resource direction and in promoting federal agency fi shery programs to fi shery constituent groups and to Congress. He helped develop legislation and policy for cold water, warm water, and anadromous fi sheries and for riparian habitat management. Paul is a certifi ed fi sheries scientist. He is also a member of The Wildlife Society (and is a certifi ed wildlife biologist), the Society of American Foresters, the Outdoor Writers Association of America, and the American Society of Association Executives. Paul resided in Falls Church, Virginia, with his wife Carol for many years. Their two children have successfully completed medical school. Paul and his wife now enjoy retirement on a farm in Vermont. Paul was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1989.
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EDGAR BROWN Edgar was born on September 25, 1871, in Farmington, New York, the son of Amos C. and Emma L. (Smith) Brown. He was a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, and earned his PhD degree in 1895. Arthur began working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a botanist in the Seed Testing Laboratory in the 1890s and was the principal botanist from 1902 to 1938.
Edgar was author or fi rst author of over 20 U.S. Department of Agriculture publications that were important to the burgeoning fi eld seed business, both to seeds men and farmers. Among his publications are his 14-page bulletin on alfalfa seed (1904); germination, growing, handling and adulteration of bluegrass seeds (1905); germination of packeted vegetable seeds (1912); how seed testing helps the farmer (1916); and what the farmer should expect from the seeds man (1920). He was the founder of the Offi cial Seed Analysis Association and an honorary fellow of the International Institute of Agricultural Botany of Cambridge, England. His most important works involved testing techniques and standards, such as a quick method for determining moisture in grain in 1907, with Joseph Duvel, and a seed counter in 1928.
He married Elizabeth V. Tefft on August 14, 1902. His second marriage was to Elizabeth D. Gould on June 6, 1936. He died on November 10, 1969, at the age of 98 in Frederick, Maryland. Edgar was a 1900 founder of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club and was awarded an honorary membership in 1960. Edgar served as secretary/treasurer from 1990 to 1901.
JOHN WESLEY BROWN John was born on December 18, 1951, in San Diego, California. As a youngster he was keenly interested in natural history, especially butterfl ies. Annual family vacations across the country helped fuel these interests. He attended Southwestern Junior College in Chula Vista, California, and graduated from San Diego State University in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in zoology. During his undergraduate career, which was long, John worked as the part-time assistant in the Entomology Department of the San Diego Natural History Museum (1977-84) and as an agricultural technician for the San Diego County Department of Agriculture (1981-84). During this time, John spent considerable time in the fi eld throughout southern California and Baja California, Mexico. In 1984, John, with his wife and two kids in tow, left San Diego for Berkeley. There he earned his doctorate in entomology in 1988 under the guidance of Jerry A. Powell. It was during this time that John began to focus on Microlepidoptera, particularly the family Tortricidae. Field work during his time at University of California-Berkeley included forays to northern Mexico and Costa Rica. Following graduate school, John had a one-year Smithsonian
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Post-doctoral Fellowship (1988-89), followed by a year as a technician at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (1989-90). Unable to obtain a position in insect systematics, John and family returned home to San Diego, where he worked as an environmental consultant (1990-96). In 1997, John was hired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Systematic Entomology Laboratory at the National Museum of Natural History to work on the pest family Tortricidae. He served as the location leader for the laboratory’s staff of 25 stationed at the Smithsonian Institution from 1998 to 2004. John served as editor of the Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society (1991-1993), editor of the Entomological Society of America’s Thomas Say Publications in Entomology (1998-2002), section editor of Annals of the Entomological Society of America (2002-2005), and section editor of Zootaxa (2003-2006). John was president of the Lepidopterists’ Society in 1999-2000 and of the Entomological Society of Washington in 2001. John’s research interests include the systematics of leaf-roller moths (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), especially those of the New World tropics and species of importance to agriculture, the biogeography of Baja California, conservation biology, and faunal surveys. He has authored or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed and/or popular articles. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000. He served on the Club’s board (2001-2003), is a frequent attendee of the Club’s activities, and is currently vice-president (2004-2006). He lives in Fairfax, Virginia, with his wife Poody. He has two grown children, John and Allisen, of whom he is exceedingly proud.
HAROLD CHILD BRYANT Harold was born in Pasadena, California, on January 30, 1886. He received a BS degree from Pomona College with a major in zoology/ornithology and MS and PhD degrees in zoology from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1914, he began service with the California Fish and Game Commission and published eight articles. Most of his work dealt with waterfowl, but he also published two articles on mammals. Most of his studies were conducted in California. Following work with the Fish and Game Commission, Harold was a lecturer and fi eld trip leader for the University of California Extension, and was a summer season ranger-naturalist at Yosemite National Park. Harold served with the National Park Service without cost to the federal government until 1923, when he was appointed as a seasonal park ranger. In 1925, Harold was named the fi rst director of the Yosemite School of Field Natural History to train naturalists. Emphasis of this training was placed on experience in the fi eld with lectures and books of secondary importance. In 1930, Harold was given his fi rst permanent position with the National Park Service as assistant director of the branch of research and education to implement a stronger interpretive and educational approach to park management. In 1938, Harold served as consultant to the director and assisted in the establishment of Olympic National Park. He was appointed acting superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park in 1939. Harold assisted in the organization of Kings Canyon National Park in 1940, and was appointed superintendent of the Grand Canyon National Park on August 1, 1941, where he served until his retirement on March 31, 1954. Harold had many signifi cant accomplishments, but was most proud of his role in establishing the interpretive programs for the National Park Service.
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He was a recipient of the Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award in 1954 and received many other honorary awards and recognitions during his career. He passed away in Berkeley, California, on July 14, 1968, at the age of 82. Harold was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1931.
HELMUT KARL BUECHNER Hal was born in Scotia, New York, on August 5, 1918. In 1941, he received a BS degree in forest zoology from New York State University, which included work in zoology, botany, wildlife management, and forestry. He moved on to Texas A&M College where he received his MS degree in 1943. He earned a PhD degree in zoology from Oklahoma State University in 1949. Hal began teaching and research during his graduate training. He worked as a fi eld biologist at College Station, Texas, from 1943 to 1948 under Walter P. Taylor. It was during this time that Hal’s lifelong interest in large wild mammals began to show. In the midst of this early work, he was a bomber pilot in the U.S. Air Force for 28 months, engaging in four major campaigns of World War II before leaving as fi rst lieutenant with a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal. From 1948 to 1949, Hal worked as a research assistant in the Oklahoma Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit. After completing his PhD degree, he became an assistant professor in zoology at Washington State University in Pullman. He later became a full professor there, teaching and conducting wildlife biology research. His research focus was big game of both North America and Africa. In 1966, he moved on to head the new Offi ce of Ecology at the Smithsonian Institution until his death. At the Smithsonian Hal greatly encouraged and facilitated fi eld research in Africa, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, Korea, and Poland, being especially effective at setting up new zoologists to work in foreign countries. In 1950, he was given the George Mercer Award of the Ecological Society of America for his famous study called Life History, Ecology, and Range Use of the Pronghorn in Trans-Pecos, Texas. He also received The Wildlife Society’s Terrestrial Research Award for his work with bighorn sheep. Twice Helmut Buechner was awarded Fulbright Appointments as Senior Scholar on Wildlife Research in Uganda, from 1956 to 1958. His precise and meticulous writing style was widely recognized. Hal served as editor of Northwest Science as well as review editor of the Journal of Wildlife Management. Some of the organizations he belonged to included the Ecological Society of America, The Wildlife Society, American Society of Mammalogists, Society for Range Management, Pacifi c-Northwest Bird and Mammal Society, Northwest Scientifi c Association, and the Wilderness Society. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1967. Hal died in Washington, D.C., on October 7, 1975.
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NOBLE E. BUELL Noble was born on March 22, 1912, on a farm near Murdock, Nebraska. His grandparents were pioneer residents of that community, homesteading there in 1869 and his parents resided continuously in the community for 80 years. He graduated in 1932 from the University of Nebraska where he majored in zoology. Noble joined the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife in 1935 working with the former control methods research laboratory in Lincoln, Nebraska. Later, he was detailed to the Prairie States Forestry Project and was responsible for developing rodent control methods. He held a number of supervisory positions in wildlife research in Wyoming, California, and Texas. In 1948, Noble became district agent of the Dakotas-Nebraska district, and in 1956, regional supervisor of predator and rodent control operations of the Bureau’s North Central Region in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A year later, Noble was named chief of the branch of predator and rodent control in the Washington offi ce. In 1961, he became chief of the Division of Wildlife for the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and served in this position until his retirement in 1971. During his period of supervision the division was composed of branches for management and procurement, predator and rodent control, wildlife refuges, and wildlife research. In 1971 he received the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Distinguished Service Award. Noble was a member of many organizations including The Wildlife Society, American Society of Mammalogists, American Numismatic Association, and the American Legion. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1960. Noble was married to Mabel, who also was a native Nebraskan. They lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, after his retirement. They had a son, Bradford E., two daughters, Sandra Albertson and Cynthia Seymour, and seven grandchildren. Noble died on January 16, 1975, at Holy Cross Hospital after suffering a heart attack.
WALTER BULMER Walt was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on July 11, 1942. Walt was raised in Lordship on Long Island Sound where wildlife became his main interest early in life. As a boy, he constructed a backyard pond for turtles and became increasingly interested in herpetology. Birds, however, have always been his primary interest. Walt’s knowledge of bird behavior increased through his hobby of egg collecting. As a young member of the Fairfi eld Audubon Society, Walt’s involvement with bird study intensifi ed. Spring bird walks and Christmas counts became regular events through his teenage years. This is where Walt met Roger Tory Peterson, who often helped with diffi cult identifi cation points. These experiences left a lasting impression and greatly infl uenced Walt’s decision to pursue ornithology. Walt earned his undergraduate degree in 1964 from Salem College in West Virginia. During this time
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he held a teaching assistant position in biology and taught ornithology as a senior. Walt attended the University of Arizona for a master’s degree in ornithology. While there, Walt’s herpetological background landed him a research fellowship from the virology lab. The focus of the research was to fi nd evidence of encephalitis virus in blood and tissue samples taken from hundreds of snakes. Walt learned how to collect and prepare museum specimens of birds and mammals while at the University of Arizona. Numerous fi eld trips with Steve Russell, Richard Crossin, and Bob Ohmart produced many specimens for the University’s collections. Besides his shotgun, Walt’s collecting equipment often included a couple of warm Schaefer beers in his backpack. Through the years, Schaefer beer has become a Bulmer trademark. Walt’s research on the life history of the red-faced warbler was the subject of his master’s thesis. This study was presented at the Cooper Ornithological Society’s annual meeting in 1966. After graduation, Walt accepted a position with the Smithsonian Pacifi c Project. Chasing birds around the central Pacifi c, banding some 20,000 individuals, and collecting and preparing specimens for the National Museum fully occupied the next two years. Walt then entered into a doctoral program at the University of Connecticut under George Clark. Here he was awarded a demi-scholarship. The next two years were spent as a lab assistant, teaching vertebrate zoology classes and collecting specimens for the University of Connecticut Natural History Museum. Several publications resulted from these efforts. During the summer of 1969, Walt returned to the Smithsonian to work on dissertation data collected during the Pacifi c Project. This is when he was offered a teaching position at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale. Walt accepted the offer and since then has taught biology, human anatomy and physiology, and vertebrate zoology at the college. In addition, Walt has taught tropical ecology to hundreds of students, leading fi eld trips to the West Indies and Central America. Walt has taught summer courses at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii. Many of Walt’s local fi eld trips have provided the data for Fairfax County’s environmental baseline studies. Walt’s collections, housed at Northern Virginia Community College, have provided data for numerous publications on Virginia herps and mammals. Among Walt’s greatest achievements, however, has been to inspire hundreds of his students to pursue careers in the fi eld of biology. Walt has been happily married to his wife, Judy, since 1977. He is extremely proud of their three grown children, Anthony, Michelle, and Michael. Walt’s fi rst association with the Washington Biologists’ Field Club was as a guest of Al Gardner for several fall and spring feasts at the Island. He also was involved with several work parties at the Island including the construction of a new roof for the cabin. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1998 and was elected secretary in 1999.
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THOMAS DEARBORN BURLEIGH Tom was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 24, 1895. During his teenage years he developed an interest in birds while tromping through nearby wooded hills and fi elds, and published his fi rst paper on birds at the age of 15. In World War I he served with the American Expeditionary Force in Europe where he learned forestry practices. This led to a master’s degree in forestry from the University of Washington in 1920, but he continued to publish notes on birds of the region. Tom moved to the University of Georgia in Athens, where he founded and served as Chairman of the School of Forestry, remaining there until 1930. During that time he traveled widely over the state, recording birdlife from the coast to the highest mountains, where he observed “northern” birds extending their ranges southward. Joining the Bureau of Biological Survey as a forest wildlife biologist, he moved to Asheville, North Carolina, in 1930. There he published accounts of birds on Mt. Mitchell and elsewhere, improving knowledge of bird distributions in North Carolina. Subsequent transfers took Tom to Washington, D.C., in 1934 where he had access to the huge bird collections, and then to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1937. His fi eld companions in those years included notable ornithologists such as Arthur Howell, George Lowery, and George Sutton, the celebrated bird artist. With his long-time interest in bird distribution, he worked with Harold Peters to publish their fi rst book, The Birds of Newfoundland, in 1951. Employed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, he returned to Georgia in 1945 to complete his book on Georgia Birds (1958), then to Moscow, Idaho, where he spent the next decade gathering material for another book, Birds of Idaho (1972). Yet another transfer back to Washington in 1958 allowed Tom to continue his descriptions of new subspecies and provided opportunities for more fi eld work in Virginia after an absence of 24 years. He retired from the Service in 1961, accomplishing a goal of describing 31 subspecies of birds in 31 years of government service. Even after moving from Arizona to Spokane, Washington, to Reno, Nevada, and fi nally to Monterey, California, he continued to collect birds or to pick up dead birds on beaches for skeletal collections for friends. He died in Monterey on August 25, 1973. Tom detested paper work and offi ce assignments; he was happiest in the fi eld with his gun and binoculars. His keen eyesight allowed him to distinguish among the tree-top inhabiting fall warblers and to select the right one for his collection. He was renowned for run-ins with the law while collecting birds and for his after-meal cigars, the ashes of which were often found in specimen trays in the National Museum and the butts under his offi ce window at the Museum. Tom was an affable fi eld companion, freely sharing his breadth of knowledge of birds and wildlife with young people and friends. Often he faced the day enthusiastically intent on collecting “good birds,” those with potential subspecifi c differences. He collected over 20,000 birds in his lifetime, authored many scientifi c papers, and diligently pursued the advancement of ornithological knowledge wherever he lived. Tom was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1960.
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JOHN BURROUGHS John was born to Chauncey A. and Amy (Kelly) Burroughs on April 3, 1837, in Roxbury, New York. He married Ursula North on September 13, 1857. John, a naturalist, taught school for about eight years before working as a treasury clerk from 1864 to 1873. He then became a national bank examiner, remaining in that position until 1884. He moved to a farm in 1874 and began devoting much of his time away from work to literature and fruit cultivation.
He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John received a LittD degree from Yale in 1910 and a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Colgate in 1911. Most noteworthy, however, was his work as an author. John wrote many books and poems, with topics varying from Walt Whitman to squirrels to Roosevelt. His publications include: Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person (1867), Wake Robin (1871), Winter Sunshine (1875), Birds and Poets (1877), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), Pepacton (1881), Fresh Fields (1884), Signs and Seasons (1886), Indoor Studies (1889), Riverby (1894), Whitman, a Study (1896), The Light of Day (1900), Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers (1900), Literary Values (1904), Far and Near (1904), Ways of Nature (1905), Bird and Bough (poems) (1906), Camping and Tramping With Roosevelt (1907), Leaf and Tendril (1908), Time and Change (1912), The Summit of the Years (1913), The Breath of Life (1915), Under the Apple Trees (1916), and Field and Study (1919). John was elected an honorary member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1904. He died on March 29, 1921.
AUGUST BUSCK August was born on February 18, 1870, in Randers, Denmark. He attended Ordrup College and Royal University in Copenhagen, from which he earned MA and PhD degrees in 1893. From 1889 to 1893, August taught botany and zoology at both Ordrup College and Copenhagen High School. After a trip to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he opened a fl ower business in Charleston, Virginia, and became an American citizen. In 1896, he was appointed the assistant to Theodore Pergande in the Division of Entomology of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He also became a specialist at the U.S. National Museum, working on microlepidoptera and greatly improving the museum’s collection. He traveled frequently to Cuba, the West Indies, and Panama, surveying mosquitoes for various groups. He also went to Mexico, British Guiana, and the West Indies to study the pink bollworm, a cotton pest. In 1908, he went to England to help his friend, Lord Walsingham,
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prepare the volume on microlepidoptera for Biologia Central-Americana. He authored over 150 papers of his own. August retired from the U.S. National Museum in 1940, and took a Yale fellowship in Hawaii to identify microlepidoptera for the Bishop Museum there. Throughout his years of work, he described over six hundred American species of microlepidoptera. Others state that he could have named a thousand more, but he did not describe a new species unless he saw a real scientifi c or economic need for the differentiation. August is remembered as going out of his way to assist friends and as having a convivial nature and a robust enthusiasm. His infl uence over young scientists and amateur entomologists was great.
August was elected to membership in 1903 and terminated his membership in 1910. He died on March 7, 1944.
VICTOR HARRISON CAHALANE Victor was born on October 17, 1901, in Charleston, New Hampshire. He was the son of David Victor and Elizabeth Harrison Cahalane. He received a BS degree in 1924 from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst with a major in landscape, and a master’s degree in forestry in 1927 from Yale Forest School, New Haven, Connecticut. In 1929, he completed course work for a PhD degree at the University of Michigan, but left without completing his dissertation. Victor served as the assistant director of the New York State Museum in Albany. He was the chief biologist for the National Park Service, Washington, D.C. He also was director of the Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfi eld Hills, Michigan. Victor served as a deer investigator with the Michigan Department of Conservation in Lansing. He also was a junior instructor at the School of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His honors include becoming a fellow at the Cranbrook Institute of Science and a fellow of the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Rochester, New York. Victor wrote eight books and about one hundred articles on birds, mammals, national parks, and conservation. One of his best known books is Mammals of North America (1947). Victor was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1939. Victor lived in Clarksville, New York, after retirement. His wife predeceased him. They had one daughter, Margaret Cahalane Hayes. He died in Dormansville, New York, on May 6, 1993. A memorial plaque was installed on Plummers Island for this well-known and admired biologist.
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MARK ALFRED CARLETON Mark was born in Ohio in 1866, and was raised and educated in Kansas. Mark was a wheat specialist, and at the time he came to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, scientists were predicting that human population in creases would outstrip wheat sup plies by 1931 unless ways were found to increase production. Mark set out to avert the crisis. He went to Russia in 1898 to search for high-yield, drought and rust resistant wheat varieties that could be grown more widely in the United States than traditional types. In 1899, he brought back Kubanca, a wheat that one observer said could grow in hell. Instead, it eventually found a home in the Great Plains where it marked the beginning of the United States durum wheat industry. A year later Mark returned to Russia, coming home this time with a hard winter wheat called Kharkov. Yet, simply introducing new wheat varieties wasn’t enough. Hard winter wheat, for example, fi rst came to the U.S. with Mennonite immigrants in the 1870s, but it never caught on with Amer icans. So Mark began a relentless campaign to convince growers, millers, and consumers of the ad vantages of his discoveries. And he succeeded, thus guaranteeing himself a place in American agricultural history. But he didn’t stop there. As head of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Offi ce of Cereal Investigation--a post awarded him soon after his return from Russia--he introduced the Swedish select oat and experi mented with the “sixty-day oat,” which became the general-purpose variety planted in the U.S. He brought winter barley cultivation to the Midwest and advocated dry farming in the Texas Panhandle. Mark left the Department in 1918. He spent most of the next seven years working in Central and South America, dying in Peru on April 26, 1925. Mark was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated his membership in 1905.
MICHAEL D. CARLETON Michael was born in Decatur, Illinois, on December 27, 1944. He attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst from 1962 to 1966, graduating cum laude with a BS degree in wildlife biology. To earn a PhD degree in zoology he attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor from 1968 to 1973, and again from 1977 to 1979. His thesis was entitled Phylogenetic Relationships in Neotomine-Peromyscine Rodents and a Reappraisal of the Dichotomy in New World Cricetinae. He received a National Defense Education Act Title IV Fellowship, teaching in the Department of Zoology at the University of Massachusetts from 1966 to 1968. The following year he was a teaching fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of Michigan. In 1970, he became a research assistant at the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan, and in 1973 was promoted to collection manager of the mammal division of that museum, where he stayed until 1978. In 1979, he came to Washington, D.C., to work as assistant curator in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. He began working for the American Museum of Natural History in 1982 as a research associate in the Department of Mammalogy, continuing his work at the National Museum of Natural History as well.
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Michael became a member of the American Society of Mammalogists, serving on both the index committee and the nomenclature committee. He also belonged to the Society for the Study of Evolution and the Society of Systematic Zoology. Michael was particularly interested in systematic mammalogy related to rodents, as well as anatomy, function, and phylogenetic analysis. Outside of research, he was interested in nature photography as well as hiking and learning the local fl ora and fauna. He studied in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and across the United States. Michael was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1981 and terminated his membership in 1990. While a member he served on the food committee and as an unoffi cial standing member of the cooking detail.
EDWARD BLANCHARD CHAMBERLAIN Edward was born on July 24, 1878, in Bristol Mills, Maine, and was home-schooled. He graduated from Bowdoin College with an AB degree in 1899 and was a Phi Beta Kappa and class valedictorian. He became a graduate student and instructor at Brown University, where he received an AM degree in 1901 and where he began work on bryophytes. He taught sciences and Greek at the Oak Grove Seminary in Vassalboro, Maine, from 1901 to 1902, and mathematics and German at the University School (for boys) in Washington, D.C., from 1902 to 1906. He went to New York City where he taught for the rest of his life in the Sachs Collegiate Institute (later the Franklin School for Boys). He died on February 2, 1925, of pneumonia at the age of 46 in New York City. At the time of his death he had been secretary-treasurer of the Sullivant Moss Society (later the American Bryological and Lichenological Society) for ten years and was business manager of their publication, The Bryologist. Edward was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1905 and was active until his death.
JOHN ALVORD CHURCHILL John was born on March 25, 1920, in Boston, Massachusetts, and attended Mt. Lebanon High School until 1938. He graduated on the Dean’s List with a BS degree from Trinity College in 1942 and with a MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1945, specializing in neurology, especially pediatric neurology. He served a one-year internship at the School of Medicine, followed by four years residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as a Kirby-McCarthy Fellow. His medical career included membership on several faculties, including Yale (1950-53), Wayne State University School of Medicine (1961-83), and East Tennessee State University (1983-87). Aside from his medical career he also worked in botany, making over 10,000 collections of 6,000 species, donated to Michigan State University in 1965, with duplicates widely distributed to other herbaria.
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During the late 1960s he published on the distribution of Carex in Michigan and on Saxifraga cernua and S. aizoon in New England. He became a research fellow of the Botany Department of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian (1970-80s) and a research associate of the Cranbrook Institute of Science. He was honored in 1968 by a testimonial from the New England Botanical Club, and a citation in 1980 from Michigan State University and the Michigan Botanical Club. He was a good friend of John Wurdack, and they often went on fi eld trips together to seek unusual and rare plants of the Appalachians. John resided in Johnson City, Tennessee, and was actively involved in writing a book when he died on November 18, 2000, from a recurrence of an earlier heart problem. John was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1970.
JOHN F. GATES CLARKE Jack was born on February 22, 1905, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He once wrote “My early years were relatively uneventful, but even at a tender age I enjoyed playing with matches and developed a penchant for spraying a passersby with the hose! At age fi ve I recall my father taking me out in the backyard and pointing out Halley’s Comet. By the time I was seven, I manifested a keen interest in natural history and began to collect butterfl ies.” Jack received a degree in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1926 from the Washington State College, and returned to Bellingham, Washington, where he had a job awaiting him at a pharmacy, but the business was fi nancially troubled. At about the same time he had been asked by the chairman of the Zoology Department at the University of Washington to return to the university to continue his studies on Lepidoptera where he received his BS degree in zoology and MS degree in entomology. Jack began his professional career in 1936 as an entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During World War II he served in Europe and earned a Bronze Star. In 1947, he was assigned to work at the Natural History Museum, London, on the Meyrick types of Lepidoptera. He received his PhD degree from the University of London in 1949 for this research that was later published as a monumental eight volume work entitled Catalogue of the Type Specimens of Microlepidoptera in the British Museum (Natural History) described by Edward Meyrick. Jack was chairman of the Department of Entomology, Smithsonian Institution from 1963 to 1965. He offi cially retired in 1975, but within months returned to a full-time work schedule. He was an internationally-known expert on Oecophoridae and microlepidoptera of island systems. In 1971, he published on Lepidoptera of Rapa Island and in 1986 Pyralidae and Microlepidoptera of the Marquesas Archipelago. He published over 100 scientifi c and popular publications on moths and described two new families, 71 new genera, and 547 new species.
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In 1983, he received an Alumni Achievement Award from Washington State University, and in 1985 he received a special recognition award from the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Jack was elected to honorary life membership in the Lepidopterists’ Society for his research on Lepidoptera. He was a member of various organizations: Entomological Society of America, Entomological Society of Washington (president), fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London, the Explorer’s Club, and the Cosmos Club, among others. Jack was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1955, and served as chairman of the grants committee from 1965 to 1979, and was vice president from 1984 to 1985. Jack is most remembered for his culinary skills with potatoes and a “small dash” of whiskey at the Island. He was an avid gardener and stamp collector, and published a few papers on “Rebecka-at-the-Well” teapots. Jack died on September 17, 1990, and was a Washington Biologists’ Field Club member of good standing for 16 years. His ashes are distributed on the Island and a plaque was mounted on a rock in remembrance of a person who had a memorable impact on the Washington Biologists’ Field Club.
GUY N. COLLINS Guy, a plant explorer and geneticist, was born on August 9, 1872, in Mertensia, New York. He attended Syracuse University, but left as an undergraduate to join O. F. Cook on a survey expedition to Liberia. Shortly after the Spanish-American War, he joined the Offi ce of Botanical Investigations and, with O. F. Cook, explored Puerto Rico, resulting in their 1903 Economic Plants of Porto Rico. He entered the Seed Laboratory and devised much of the apparatus and statistical techniques for sampling seed lots for germination and purity. His fi rst work on maize came in 1909, and he worked out much of its inheritance over the years. He died of endocarditis on August 14, 1938, at the age of 66 in Lanham, Maryland. Guy was a 1900 founder of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. He served on the original building committee in 1900, and the site selection committee in 1901. He terminated his membership in 1906.
LAWRENCE V. COMPTON Larry was born in 1906 in Roanoke, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1929. He earned a master’s degree in zoology at the University of California at Berkeley in 1935, and served in the Army Corps of Engineers in World War II. He retired as chief biologist of the Agriculture Department’s Soil Service in 1974 at the age of 68, having spent most of his 39-year career as a biologist at the district, regional, and national levels. Among his programs was the development of farm ponds to breed catfi sh. He wrote many articles on fi sheries, wildlife management, and soil conservation during and after his career. In 1971, he received the Soil Conservation Society Meritorious Service Award. Larry was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’
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Field Club in 1946. His marriage to his fi rst wife Dorothy Compton ended in divorce. He had a daughter and two grandsons and three great grandchildren from his fi rst marriage. His second wife, Erminie Compton, died in 1993. Larry died on February 8, 2000, at the age of 93 of congestive heart failure at the Powhatan Nursing Home in Falls Church, Virginia.
ORATOR FULLER COOK, JR. Orator was born on May 28, 1867, in Clyde, New York. He graduated from Syracuse University in 1890 and taught there for a year. His alma mater awarded him an honorary DSc degree in 1930. From 1891 to 1898, he was employed as a special agent for the New York State Colonization Society at Huntington, New York, making three trips to Liberia to prepare for “repatriation of the American Negro.” In 1898, Orator entered the U.S. Department of Agriculture and spent most of his career in agriculture. He also was appointed curator of cryptogams at the National Herbarium in May 1899. For several years he was in charge of seed and plant introduction and of tropical investigations. In 1904, he became professor of botany at George Washington University. In 1934, he was transferred to the Division of Plant Introduction, retired in 1937 at the age of 70, but continued to work in retirement. He was an authority on modern and pre-Columbian agriculture, foresaw the possibility of cut-off of Asiatic rubber, and encouraged establishment of plantations in the New World. His interests ranged from myriopods to palms, two groups in which he was the international authority, not to mention nomenclature. He died at his home in Lanham, Maryland, on April 23, 1949, at the age of 81. Orator was a 1900 founder of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, served on its standing committee and organizing committee, and terminated his membership in 1905.
CLARENCE COTTAM Clarence was born on January 1, 1899, in St. George, Utah, the son of pioneer Mormon farmers. He earned BS (1926) and MS (1927) degrees from Brigham Young University, and a PhD degree (1936) from George Washington University. After serving as instructor in biology at Brigham Young University (1927-29), Clarence was junior biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (1929-31), assistant biologist (1931-35), and senior biologist in charge of food habits, Division of Wildlife Research (1935-40). He also held the latter position with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (1940-42) and was in charge of economic wildlife investigations, Division of Wildlife Research (1942-44). In 1944, he became assistant to the Service director, and served as chief of the Division of Wildlife Research, 1944-46, and again as assistant director, 1946-54. Upon retirement from federal service in 1954, Cottam became dean of the College of Biological and Agricultural Sciences at Brigham Young University. A year later, Clarence became the fi rst director of the Welder Wildlife Foundation in Sinton, Texas. Nearly 150 students from 39 North American universities attained graduate degrees studying on Foundation property and elsewhere under the Foundation’s sponsorship and Clarence’s administration. Clarence’s many awards include an honorary award of Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
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(1948), the Laval University Medal (1952), Aldo Leopold Award of The Wildlife Society (1955), Distinguished Service Award in Conservation and Forestry of Utah State University (1957), National Audubon Conservation Distinguished Service Medal (1961), Poage Humanitarian Award, Society of Animal Protection (1962), Frances K. Hutchinson Medal of the Garden Club of America (1962), Paul Bartsch Award of the Audubon Naturalist Society (1962), Conservation Service Award of the Department of the Interior (1965), and the Talmadege Scientifi c Achievement Award form Brigham Young University (1971). Author or co-author of approximately 250 scientifi c papers, Clarence is possibly best known for his book Food Habits of American Diving Ducks (1939) and his consummate skill and effectiveness in championing environmental needs and wise use of natural resources. His foremost professional passions were birdlife, wetlands, fi ghting against pesticide abuses, and pursuing the study or defense of each with peerless dedication. He was a man of great energy, wit, intellect, conviction, and integrity. He was a true scientist. Clarence had an extraordinary number of professional affi liations, and many benefi ted directly from his leadership. Those for which he served as president included The Wildlife Society (1949-50), Texas Ornithological Society (1957-58), National Parks Association (1960-63), and Council of Southwest Foundations (1962-63). He also was a trustee of the J. N. (“Ding”) Darling Foundation and the Rachel Carson Trust. Clarence was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1934. He died on March 30, 1974, in Corpus Christi, Texas.
LEO K. COUCH Leo was born on July 5, 1896. He worked as a biologist for the Biological Survey. In 1949, Fish and Wildlife Director Al Day announced that Leo would be the Service’s coordinator for the cooperative waterfowl studies in the Pacifi c Flyway. Leo served in that capacity until mid-1951. He published 14 articles between 1929 and 1954, most dealing with wildlife management, especially in regard to trapping and predators. Leo was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1938 and an honorary member in 1974. Leo died on May 14, 1974.
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FREDERICK VERNON COVILLE Frederick was born on March 23, 1867, in Preston, New York. He received an AB degree at Cornell University in 1887 as an honor student and outstanding athlete. He was an instructor there before going to the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an assistant botanist in 1888 to begin 49 years as an outstanding public servant. He became botanist in 1893 upon the death of George Vasey and also curator of the National Herbarium, a title he retained when it was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1896. He became senior botanist in 1924 and principal botanist in 1928. It was a shock for him to come from the excellent library of Cornell to the meager holdings of the Department of Agriculture Library, where he began building with a passion as indicated by the strong statement inserted in the Secretary of Agriculture’s Report for 1889. When the Bureau of Plant Industries was established in 1901 he became head of the Offi ce of Botanical Investigations and Experiments and went through a series of title changes. He was active in promoting the National Arboretum and became its acting director in 1929, when the project took defi nite form after almost 30 years of effort. His fi rst professional fi eldwork was in Arkansas in 1887. His most important fi eld work was as botanist on the Death Valley Expedition of 1891. In 1899 he was on the Harriman Alaska Expedition with T. H. Kearney, describing 25 new Alaskan willows. He was infl uential in the formation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Seed Laboratory. His work on blueberries led to a new commercial crop, a critical discovery being soil conditions favorable to a mycorrhizal fungus. He was president of the Biological Society of Washington from 1899 to 1900, the Botanical Society of Washington in 1903, the Washington Academy of Sciences in 1912, the Cosmos Club in 1915, and the Arts Club from 1927 to 1929. He received an honorary DSc degree from George Washington University in 1921. He served as vice president of American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1903. He served as chairman of the National Geographic Society’s Research Committee from 1920 to 1937. Frederick received the George Robert White Medal of Honor from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1921, in recognition of his outstanding work on blueberries. The historic name for creosote bush, Covillea, of the western deserts was named for him. Frederick was a 1900 founder of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club and served as president from 1919 to 1921. He died of a coronary thrombosis on January 9, 1937, at the age of 69 in Washington, D.C.
RICHARD SUMNER COWAN Dick was born on January 23, 1921, in Crawfordsville, Indiana, and was educated in Florida. In 1938, he returned to his birthplace, and in June 1941 married Mary Frances Minnick. He received an AB degree at Wabash College in 1942. In 1943, he joined the Navy (Seabees) and served in the Pacifi c. He collected plants on Tinian, despite the danger from snipers. He received his MS degree in Hawaii in 1948 and got a job at the New York Botanical Garden. He participated in two trips to the Lost World (tepuis) of Venezuela, the fi rst being a fi ve-month trip beginning in October 1950. In 1952, he completed a PhD degree at Columbia University and continued to work at the Botanical Garden. He went back to South America to collect in Amapa (Brazil) and French Guiana. In May 1957, Dick became an associate curator in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian
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Institution and continued fi eld work in South America. He received several rapid promotions: assistant director of the National Museum of Natural History (1962), then deputy director of the Museum (mid- 1965), and director (late 1965-72). In spite of his administrative responsibilities, he was secretary-general of the 1969 International Botanical Congress in Seattle and an organizer of the fi rst International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology in 1972. After 1972, Dick was appointed senior botanist in the Department of Botany. On October 31, 1985, he offi cially retired from the Smithsonian. Dick was a member of many societies, often an offi cer, including president (1970) of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, and vice president (1978) and president (1979) of the Botanical Society of Washington. Dick’s involvement with the International Association for Plant Taxonomy warrants special comment. He served in almost every capacity: editor of Taxon and regional treasurer (1963-85), administrator of fi nances, vice president (1975-81), and president (1981-85). He is best known as second author of one of the key reference works in plant taxonomy: the six volume work (7,000 pages), Taxonomic Literature, ed. 2 (1976-88), a bibliographic survey of all taxonomic botanical books published for 200 years, ca.1740-1940. It is a work that makes taxonomic zoologists drool with envy. Among the honors accorded him are: New York Botanical Garden Distinguished Service Award (1968), the Henry Allen Gleason Award of the New York Botanical Garden (1968) for his Swartzia revision, Smithsonian Institution Special Achievement Award (1968), Citation of Special Recognition by Associates of the National Agricultural Library (1979, with medal, for Taxonomic Literature), Commemorative Scroll Award of the Australian Systematic Botany Society, as an expression of gratitude of Australian botanists for Taxonomic Literature (1988), and Founder’s Medal of the Society for the History and Bibliography of Natural History (1990). Dick moved to Perth in 1986 and began studying Australian Acacia for the Flora of Australia, as well as other Australian mimosoids. The December 1985 issue of Brittonia was dedicated to him on the occasion of his departure for Australia. He married Roberta Ann Tobias August 23, 1986. Dick had a son, Michael Norman Sumner Cowan, and a daughter from his fi rst marriage. Following a stroke in June 1997, from which he recovered, and head trauma following a fall, he died in Perth on November 17, 1997. Dick was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1961. He was a member of the fl ora and fauna committee. He was a faithful attendee at outings and annual meetings and was always ready to do his share. His career at the New York Botanic Garden and in the Botany Department at the Smithsonian was coincident with Washington Biologists’ Field Club member John Wurdack’s time there. Some of that close relationship was expressed in Dick’s penultimate publication: My friend John [Wurdack]. BioLania Ed. Esp. 6: 103-108, 1997.
JAMES CHAMBERLAIN CRAWFORD James, a specialist on bees, chalcids, and thrips, was born in West Point, Nebraska, on August 24, 1880. He attended the University of Nebraska and for a short time was head of the Biology Department of the University. Later he obtained an MS degree from George Washington University. In 1904, he served as a special fi eld agent on cotton insects for the U.S. Bureau of Entomology and published articles on the Hymenoptera. In 1908, he succeeded W. H. Ashmead of the U.S. National Museum, becoming assistant curator and later
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associate curator. There he worked primarily on bees and chalcids. In 1919, James left the National Museum to engage in business. From 1923 to 1929, he was employed by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture at Raleigh. From 1930 to 1940, he did quarantine work and insect identifi cation for the U.S. Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine in the port of New York. There he studied the Hymenoptera and Thysanoptera and in 1940 became a specialist on thrips in the Bureau’s Division of Insect Identifi cation, where he remained until his retirement, a few months before his death. James wrote about 75 papers on bees and chalcids and over 25 on thrips. James was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1909 and terminated his membership in 1927. James died on December 20, 1950.
PAUL DAVID CROSS Dave was born on October 28, 1945, in Goffstown, New Hampshire. He grew up in a military family that moved frequently around the country and the world. His father introduced him early to fi shing and hunting, and frequent visits to his grandmother’s rural New Hampshire home developed his early interest in the outdoors, especially aquatic resources. He received BS and MS degrees in Fisheries Management from Humboldt State University before entering the Navy for four years. At the end of his Naval enlistment Dave went to work for the Bureau of Land Management as a District fi sheries scientist in Redding, California, and then in Medford, Oregon, working on assessments of timber sales, mining operation, and hydrology projects. In 1980, Dave left federal employment to become the Fisheries Program Director for the Confederated Salish and Kootenia Tribes in Pablo, Montana. As principal investigator for a Lower Flathead Lake/River System study, he led a multi-cultural team of biologists and technicians in a fi ve-year project to identify and remedy the impacts of hydroelectric and agricultural water development to Tribal aquatic resources. In 1987, Dave became the senior fi sheries scientist for Ott Water Engineers, a consulting fi rm in Redding, California, and later worked with Thomas Payne and Associates, a consulting fi rm in Arcata, California. For both fi rms, he managed projects to establish fi sh passage and instream fl ows to protect aquatic resources as part of developing hydroelectric facilities on rivers and streams throughout the country including
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New Hampshire, Kentucky, California, and Alaska. In 1989, Dave accepted a zone fi sheries biologist position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service on the Shasta Trinity National Forest in Weaverville, California. He accepted an offer to be the fi sheries program leader on the Panhandle National Forest in 1991, and returned to the Shasta Trinity National Forest as fi sheries program leader in 1996. In 1999, Dave accepted an offer as assistant national fi sheries program leader for the Forest Service in Washington, D.C., and in 2002 he became the national fi sheries program leader for the Forest Service. As national fi sheries program leader Dave was responsible for coordinating the fi rst comprehensive national review of the fi sheries and watershed in 16 years. He was the editor of the weekly electronic newsletter “Fish Tales,” which was designed to keep Forest Service line and technical staff and Forest Service partners informed on developments of national signifi cance in the Forest Service fi sheries and watershed programs. As a legislative fellow with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Dave gained fi rst hand experience in coalition building and external relations in the legislative arena. Dave was responsible for building coalitions and managing diverse and charged political issues for Senator Baucus, Ranking Member of the Committee. Issues he worked on included the highly contentious oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, grizzly bear re-introductions in Idaho and Montana, and proposed ocean jetties off Oregon Inlet, North Carolina. Recognizing the need for diversity in the Forest Service workforce, Dave led the Forest Service’s participation in the Hutton Scholarship program of the American Fisheries Society. This program introduces minority high school students to aquatic resource management with Forest Service personnel acting as mentors. This is a national effort to encourage minorities to pursue college-level training and careers in the aquatic fi eld. Forest Service mentors have mentored numerous students through this program. For this effort, Dave received a Chief’s Award for Civil Rights and a Distinguished Service Award from the American Fisheries Society. Dave is a life member of the American Fisheries Society, joining the Society in 1968 while at Humboldt State University. The American Fisheries Society certifi ed him as a fi sheries scientist in 1982. He served as vice president (1993), president-elect (1994) and president (1995) of the Idaho Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. Dave also has served on numerous national committees for the Society; most recently the Hutton Scholarship Committee. Dave retired from the Forest Service in May of 2006. He relocated to Scotland, Connecticut, where he enjoys hunting, fl y fi shing, fl y tying, bird dogs, and wildlife photography. He has a grown son, Michael, in Santa Cruz, California, and a daughter, Heather, in a doctoral program in evolutionary ecology at the University of Connecticut. Dave was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2004.
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ROLLA PATTERSON CURRIE Rolla was born in 1875 in Preemption, Illinois. He graduated from the University of North Dakota at the age of 18. He went to work at the Smithsonian and was active with the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. He also went on many fi elds trips for the Smithsonian, including explorations to British Columbia and Liberia, where he collected with Professor O. F. Cook in 1889. In 1901, Rolla went to work as an entomologist with the Bureau of Entomology, Department of Agriculture and specialized in odonates. He remained an editor in that department until his retirement in 1944 at the age of 69. That year he followed in the footsteps of his father and two uncles and entered the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. Rolla was ordained an Episcopal priest two years later by the Right Reverend Angus Dun, then bishop of Washington. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated his membership in 1930. Rolla served as secretary/treasurer from 1904 to 1905. Rolla had two children. Rolla died on September 20, 1960.
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LUCAS MCINTOSH DARGAN Luke was born on July 18, 1917, in Darlington County, South Carolina. He graduated from St. John’s High School in Darlington in 1934, and attended North Carolina State College from 1934 to 1936, majoring in forestry. He attended Utah State College and received a BS degree in forestry in 1938. He was employed by the Utah Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit in 1938 and worked on population and habitat studies of waterfowl and mule deer. From 1938 to 1940, he was employed by the Colorado Game and Fish Department and worked on mule deer, sage grouse, and beaver. From 1940 to 1948, he was employed by the Fish and Wildlife Service at Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, Maryland, on forest/wildlife relations. This period at Patuxent was interrupted by a four-year stint of active duty in the U.S. Naval Reserve aboard a destroyer and cruiser. Luke worked for the Ingram-Dargan Lumber Company as a forester from 1948 to 1950. In 1950, he became a consulting forester, and he remained in this position until 1997 when he retired. Luke was active in many professional natural resources groups, including the South Carolina Farm Bureau, where he served as chairman of the forestry and natural resources committee for ten years. He was chairman of the forestry advisory committee of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Luke served as commissioner on the South Carolina Water Resources Commission, as a board member of the South Carolina Forestry Association, and as member of the South Carolina Governor’s Advisory Council on Natural Resources. Luke was active in Boy Scouts where he served as scout master and received the Silver Beaver Award. He served with the Girl Scouts and assisted his wife, who was a troop leader, and acted as general camping helper for the troops of his daughters. Luke served on the council camp development committee. Luke also was active in local, regional, and state historical societies. Luke married Sarah Frances Edwards, also from Darlington, on October 23, 1948, and they had four daughters. Luke was elected to membership in 1946 and has been a non-resident member since 1948.
DONALD RAY DAVIS
Don, the second son of Esker Arnold and Mildred Louise (Fortson) Davis, was born on March 28, 1934, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The outdoor experiences from growing up on a small farm near the city greatly fostered his early interests in all phases of natural history, including everything from astronomy to zoology. During his high school years Don was an active participant in local and state science fairs. In his senior year he won honorable mention in the national Westinghouse Science Talent Search (with an article he wrote on the moth genus Schinia) and later won a trip to compete in the National Science Fair, which was held that year (1952) at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Because his exhibit (which won third place in the biology division) emphasized Lepidoptera, Don attracted the attention of staff members in the Museum’s Division of Entomology, especially of then head curator, J. F. Gates Clarke. Following Clarke’s initial urging to specialize in his particular fi eld, Microlepidoptera, Don immediately embarked upon a career goal to work someday at the Smithsonian Institution. Don received his BA degree in entomology at the University of Kansas in 1956. In 1962, he earned his
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PhD degree at Cornell University under John G. Franclemont, formerly a U.S. Department of Agriculture research entomologist at the Museum, whom Don had fi rst met during the National Science Fair in 1952. Fulfi lling a dream he had nurtured since high school, Don was hired by J. F. Gates Clarke and the Smithsonian Institution as a research entomologist in Microlepidoptera in the fall of 1961, and he continues in that position to the present. From 1976 to 1981 he served as chairman of the Department. Don married Mignon Marie Bush in 1972, who had recently been hired as an assistant in the same department. They have been blessed with two wonderful children, Marisa Marie and Steven Ray. Marisa graduated from Ohio State University in 2003 with a degree in business administration. Steven graduated with a degree in entomology from the University of Maryland in 2005 and is now pursuing his doctorate in this fi eld. Since his graduate days, Don’s research has focused on the more basal groups of Lepidoptera. He has published important references on many of these, in particular the families Acrolophidae, Carposinidae, Eriocottidae, Eriocraniidae, Opostegidae, Prodoxidae, Psychidae, and Tineidae, as well as on the new families Acanthopteroctetidae, Andesianidae, and Palaephatidae. Much of his research emphasizes the biology of his subjects and their immature stages. In recent years he has concentrated on the biology of plant-mining and cave-dwelling moths and is now completing major works on the Adelidae, Epipyropidae, Gracillariidae, Nepticulidae, and Tineidae. Currently he is involved with a Lepidoptera ATOL (Assembling the Tree of Life) project which will propose a family phylogeny for the order based on genomic and morphological data. Don’s various activities have involved him in fi eld work in over 45 countries that have resulted in the addition of nearly one million specimens to the National Museum. In 1977, he was awarded the Jordan Medal by the Lepidopterists’ Society for his work on yucca moths and their allies (Prodoxidae). Don has served as president of the Entomological Society of Washington (1977), the Lepidopterists’ Society (1985), and the Biological Society of Washington (1985-86). He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1972. Don has served on the research committee for several years, including serving as chairman from 1977 to 1981 and is currently a member of this committee.
MALCOLM DAVIS Malcolm was born in 1899 in Washington, D.C. He went to Business High School and attended the University of Maryland for two years. He later received his degree in zoology from George Washington University. After serving in the Army Signal Corps during World War I, he was employed by the National Zoological Park in 1927. Here he found his special interest in birds. He worked in many departments at the zoo, but eventually he became head keeper in the Bird Division. In this work he made trips to Africa, Asia, Australia, the East Indies, New Zealand, Samoa, South America, and Alaska to bring back animals for display. In addition to these travels, he went to Antarctica three times with Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, surveying islands that are now named after him and bringing back the fi rst live emperor penguins. Malcolm once held the record for keeping these penguins alive in captivity (six years), and among many other animals, he brought back an Indian rhinoceros which was for many years the zoo’s most prized animal. In 1960, Malcolm retired from the zoo and began work as a consultant to the National Wildlife Federation, also taking care of a monkey colony at the Woodard Research Corporation in Herndon. Among the professional organizations with which Malcolm was involved are the American Ornithologists’ Union, the
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American Society of Mammalogists, the Biological Society of Washington, the International Wild Waterfowl Association, the Audubon Society, the Northern Virginia Ornithological Society, Virginia Outdoor Writers’ Association, the Antarctic Society, and the Explorers’ Club. He also was active in the Masonic Lodge, Herndon Lions Club, Trinity Presbyterian Church of Herndon, and the Goose Creek Country Club. He contributed to The Auk, Journal of Mammalogy, National Geographic Magazine, and All-Pets Magazine, as well as to the weekly journals, Fairfax County Sun Echo and Loudoun County Times-Mirror. One of his most famous accounts was of a tailor bird’s behavior during an earthquake in Calcutta; it was the fi rst known record of a bird’s behavior during an earthquake. He also spoke frequently to various civic and public groups. In his own words, he lived his life to “create and encourage awareness among the people of the Nation of the need for wise use and proper management of those resources of the earth upon which the lives and welfare of man depend: the soils, the waters, the forests, the minerals, the plant life, and the wildlife.” He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1942. He died in Herndon, Virginia, on October 4, 1970, of a heart attack.
PAULA TERESA DEPRIEST Paula was born on October 5, 1957, and raised in Dyer, Tennessee, where she developed a strong interest in lichens. While an undergraduate, she completed a 1977 fi eld course in lichenology with Smithsonian Curator Mason E. Hale at the University of Montana Biological Station Summer Field School. She continued studies of lichenology while completing a BS degree in biology at Union University, Jackson, Tennessee, in 1978; an MS degree in botany at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1988; and a PhD degree in botany at Duke University in 1992. Paula has worked as a research scientist and curator of the lichen collection (U.S. National Herbarium) in the Botany Section of the Department Systematic Biology of the National Museum of Natural History from February 1992 to 2003 with research in the systematics and phylogeny of lichen-forming fungi. She holds positions as adjunct professor at Duke University (1997-2003) and George Mason University (1998-2003). She was a guest professor at the Institut für Botanik, Karl Franzens Universität, Graz, Austria, in 1995, a guest lecturer in the Department of Ecological Botany, Umeå University, Sweden, in 1995, and has twice served as a dissertation opponent for PhD candidates at Swedish Universities. From 1994 to 1995, Paula directed the National Museum of Natural History Research Training Program. She has served in many capacities in the Museum’s Senate of Scientists, including chair in 1999.
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Paula has strong interests in public outreach and training of students. She has served as research advisor to 22 students, including postdoctoral and predoctoral fellows and undergraduate interns, worked with researchers from all over the world, and published over 35 research studies. Her publications include biographies of biologists for the American National Biography. She organized and hosted a conference for the National Science Foundation Partnerships Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy Program in 2000 and served on the Public Programs Committee for the National Museum of Natural History from 1996 to 1999. Research and fi eldwork have taken her throughout Europe, especially the Scandinavian countries, and to Belize, Guyana, and Hawaii. Her early lichenological studies were conducted in the southern Appalachians and the southeastern U.S. Her research has been featured in various journals and newspapers, including BioScience, Science, and the New York Times. Paula was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000.
LYSTER HOXIE DEWEY Lyster was born on March 14, 1865, in Cambridge, Michigan. He graduated with a BS degree from Michigan Agricultural College in 1888 and instructed in botany there until 1890. In 1888, he participated in a major botanical exploring expedition across the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. He competed with six other candidates to become “assistant to the botanist” with the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1890 to 1902 and in 1935 he became botanist in charge of fi ber crop investigations. His early works were on weeds (1894-1901) and the later works were on fi ber crops like hemp, Cannabis sativa. He died on November 27, 1944, at the age of 79 in Kenmore, New York. Lyster was a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900, but ended his membership in 1901.
EVERETT R. DOMAN Everett was born on July 27, 1912, in Welling, Alberta, Canada, where his father was a farmer. His family lived in Canada until he was about three years old and then returned to Huntsville, Utah. He married Gay Wangsgard, also a Huntsville native, in 1938. They had three daughters: Mary Gay Doman, professor at California State University, Northridge; Lois Rose, cataloger at Library of Congress; and Kathy Lang, a homemaker, teacher’s aide, and mother of two daughters. Everett attended Weber College in Ogden, Utah, and graduated from Utah State University in 1938 with a degree in wildlife management. From 1938 to 1943, he was employed by the Utah Fish and Game Department as project leader for one of the earliest Pittman-Robertson research projects. The project was directed mainly at supplemental winter feeding of mule deer, mule deer life history studies, and census methods. Several publications, co-authored with Dr. D. I. Rasmussen, resulted from this project. In 1943, Everett began his career with the U.S. Forest Service as assistant forest ranger on the Navajo Lake Ranger District of the Dixie National Forest in southern Utah. He served as a district ranger on the Fishlake National Forest in Utah, as the wildlife and range staff offi cer on the Manti Forest, also in Utah, and as assistant supervisor of the Teton Forest, Jackson, Wyoming.
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From 1954 to 1957, he served in Washington, D.C., as assistant director of the Forest Service’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and then was transferred to Alamogordo, New Mexico as Supervisor of the Lincoln National Forest. From 1960 to 1970, he was assistant regional forester and director of Range Management, Fisheries and Wildlife in the Forest Service’s California Region with headquarters in San Francisco. In 1966, he was presented the Forest Conservation award by the California Wildlife Federation. Everett returned to the Forest Service staff in Washington, D.C., in 1970 as Director of Wildlife and Fisheries. He retired at the end of 1974. In 1975, he moved to Ogden, Utah. During Everett’s tenure with the Forest Service, he saw it change from a primarily timber and range management agency to a true multiple-use agency with recognition given to the size and importance of the Forest Service’s Wildlife and Fisheries habitat management jobs. He is proud that he had at least a small part in bringing this change about. Everett was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1971, and remained a non-resident member until his death at his home on March 1, 2007, at age 94.
ALFRED ABEL DOOLITTLE Alfred was born in 1870. He was employed as a carcinologist and also was employed by Central High School. Alfred was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated his membership in 1937. Alfred served as secretary/treasurer from 1905 to 1908.
EUGENE HENRY DUSTMAN Eugene (“Dusty”) was born on May 5, 1917, in the village of Poland, Ohio. He attended the public schools in Youngstown, and much of his boyhood was spent in a rural setting in the fi elds, woods, ponds, and streams near his home observing, admiring, and attempting to understand the mysteries and complexities of the natural world. His interest in nature was further fueled by the writings of Ernest Thompson Seton and Robert Frost. He realized early in life that understanding accompanies learning and that it is sensible to load up on both. Following completion of his high school education in 1935, he enrolled in the Ohio State University where he received his BS degree in 1940, an MS degree in 1943, and a PhD degree in 1948. His PhD degree was obtained following a two-year plus stint in the military service during World War II. The topic of his master’s degree was the habitat ecology of ruffed grouse broods in southeastern Ohio. Research for his doctorate was an investigation of the factors that caused a widespread, cataclysmic reduction in the ring-necked pheasant population in northwestern Ohio. He was inducted into the armed services in 1943 and served as
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a member of a 12-man airborne team, the 21st Malaria Survey Detachment, 13th Air Force. Overseas duty areas included the islands of New Guinea, Morotai, and Leyte. He was honorably discharged in January 1946. Dusty was appointed leader of the Ohio Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit in 1948 and remained there until 1959. In this position, he organized the Unit as an effective training ground for future research leaders and wildlife administrators in the fi eld of wildlife conservation. He served as the major advisor of 23 MS and 6 PhD students during his 11-year tenure at Ohio State University. These students went on to occupy distinguished positions in universities across the nation, and others held responsible positions in federal, state, and private conservation organizations. In 1959, he became assistant director of the Branch of Wildlife Research, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and directed and coordinated activities of the 18 Cooperative Wildlife Research Units. His efforts in this assignment did much to develop the Units into a highly effi cient and effective system for quality training of research scientists in the fi eld of wildlife research. Dusty served as director of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center from 1963 until his retirement in 1972. Under his leadership the Research Center became a scientifi c institution known and respected throughout the world in regard to environmental contaminants, especially DDT. His insistence on experimental validation of ecological hypotheses brought a new dimension to wildlife research. He was instrumental in the presentation of the scientifi c world’s fi rst experimental demonstration of DDE-induced shell thinning of birds’ eggs at the Madison, Wisconsin, hearings on DDT. He published a total of 34 technical publications; a number of them dealt with the effects of pesticides on wildlife. He was a member of the honorary scientifi c fraternity Sigma Xi and in 1971 was named the Society’s representative to the National Research Council. He served as a charter member of the Council of Environmental Quality’s Monitoring Panel and has served on a number of other intra-governmental committees. In 1973, he received a Special Achievement Award and Commendation for Superior Service to the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. In 1996, the State of Ohio and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources honored him with the Ohio Conservation Achievement Award: “As teacher, author, scientist, and sportsman. Perhaps his greatest achievement has been the wide circle of students, colleagues, and friends he has gathered through the years, inspiring each to share his love and unique understanding of our natural world.” He lived in Everett, Pennsylvania, and Palmyra, Virginia, in retirement. Dusty was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1963 and later became an emeritus member.
ALLEN JEFFERSON JOSEPH DUVALL Allen was born on October 15, 1910. He grew up in Washington, D.C., and was an acquaintance of Luther Goldman in early years of his life; they played sandlot football together. Allen was a friend of H. C. Oberholser and came to the old Biological Survey in 1936 to work under him. He was a museum aide at the Smithsonian until 1946. Allen also worked under John Aldrich, and they published several papers together especially on the various races of mourning doves. Allen collected specimens with Charles Handley in Northwest Territories, Northwest Greenland, Devon Island, and elsewhere in the
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Canadian Arctic; with H. S. Peters and Fred Lincoln in Cuba, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia; with Gorman Bond in Illinois, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, Missouri, and Kansas; and with Tom Burleigh in Cuba, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. Burleigh and Duvall published a new subspecies of fl ycatcher (Contopus) from the southern keys of Cuba in 1948 in Proceedings Biological Society of Washington. Allen attended George Washington University before the war, and during the war served with the Army Medical Corps involved with operations at Walter Reed Hospital. During the 1950s, Allen was head of the Bird Banding Offi ce at Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland, and was an ornithologist on the Pesticide Review Board. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1950. Allen died in February, 1983, in Plano, Texas.
JOSEPH WILLIAM TELL DUVEL Joseph, son of August and Amanda Duvel, was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on November 16, 1873. He attended Ohio State University, where he received his BS degree and went on to achieve his doctor of science degree from the University of Michigan in 1902. Joseph was the assistant botanist for the Ohio Agricultural Experimental Station from 1898 to 1899 with the Bureau of Plant Industry. He also worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. He soon became a specialist in grain crops and developed many special and signifi cant techniques including an instrument to test the moisture content of grain, which now has become a standard. He was in charge of grain standardization investigations with the U.S. Grain Corporation of New York, where he was a part of the War Food Administration for the World War. Between 1918 and 1925, he worked as a grain merchant for Winnipeg, Canada, a grain exchange supervisor for Chicago, and chief for the Commodity Exchange Administration in Washington, D.C. In 1918, he went to Australia and aided in the development of grain production for wartime. For these services he was awarded a gold medal and elected as an honorary life member of the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales. Joseph was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of many clubs and societies including the Washington Botanical Society, the Potomac Grange, Kappa Sigma Fraternity, and Pi Gamma Mu, and he participated in the Cosmos Club. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1903. Joseph died on May 6, 1946. He and his wife, Elva, had one daughter and one son.
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RALPH PETER ECKERLIN Ralph was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, on February 10, 1938. He and his family lived on Long Island, New York, for 12 years, and they later moved to the then wilds of Paramus, New Jersey. A born fi eld biologist, he trapped muskrats in the local marsh, fi shed, and brought home specimens of all kinds to the “delight” of his mother. He also was an enthusiastic camper and outdoorsman with the Boy Scouts, and later with his boyhood friends. Ralph graduated from Hackensack High School and entered Rutgers University to major in biological sciences. In his junior year, he took a parasitology course from Dr. Leslie Stauber that decided the track that he was to follow from then on. Ralph worked in Stauber’s laboratory for almost two years and graduated from Rutgers with a BA degree in 1960. Ralph entered graduate school at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, fi rst as a research assistant in the lab of Dr. W. Henry Leigh, and later supported by a National Institutes of Health Parasitology Training Fellowship. The subject of his master’s thesis, completed in 1962, was the life cycle of the cat liver fl uke, Platynosomum fastosum. Ralph spent that summer in Costa Rica collecting data on the prevalence of, and epidemiological factors infl uencing Chagas disease under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health. From 1962 until 1966, Ralph was a research biologist in the pharmaceutical industry with the Lederle Laboratories of American Cyanamid Company, where he developed drug screening protocols for amebiasis and trichomoniasis using animal model infections. He returned to graduate school at the University of Connecticut, funded by the American Cyanamid Company Fellowship. His work was on nematode parasites of squirrels, and his PhD degree in parasitology was completed in 1974. Ralph taught for one year at the University of Connecticut, but moved south in 1971 to Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia, where he teaches biology. Since 1980 Ralph also has taught parasitology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Ralph became a member of the Helminthological Society of Washington in 1974. He served on the executive committee and held most offi ces in the society until he served as president in 1986. That year he was able to go to Brisbane, Australia to attend the International Congress of Parasitology and represent the Helminthological Society of Washington. He also was the editor of the Journal of the Helminthological Society of Washington for fi ve years from 1988 to 1993. Ralph has been president of the Tropical Medicine Association of Washington, the Entomological Society of Washington, and the Virginia Association for Biological Education; and he has held many varied offi ces in each of these societies over the years. Ralph has conducted fi eldwork, often accompanied by students, in the Appalachian Mountains and in Central America, where his principal interest has been in ectoparasites, especially fl eas. He helped organize and run a symposium on Appalachian biogeography and later edited the symposium proceedings. His 1998 college sabbatical was spent collecting small mammals and their parasites in the cloud forests of Guatemala and Honduras, supported in part by the National Geographic Society and the Food and Drug Administration. Many new taxa of fl eas, lice, and protozoans were discovered and are being worked on today. Research associate affi liations with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and with the Virginia Museum of Natural History have been rewarding. Ralph’s strongest supporter is his wife, Mary, whom often accompanied him to foreign sites, whether in a fi rst class hotel in a major city or in a tent in the forest. Both are proud of their two daughters, one a lawyer and the other a college professor. Ralph was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000 and has participated in many activities.
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JOHN FREDERICK EISENBERG John was born on June 20, 1935, in Everett, Washington. He began a career of nature study while quite young with active encouragement from his parents, Otto and Bernice Sessions Eisenberg. His family actively pursued hunting and fi shing activities in the Pacifi c Northwest. John completed a BS degree in zoology at Washington State University and did his graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. He completed his PhD degree in 1961. He began his professional career as an assistant professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He moved to College Park, Maryland, in 1964 for a position in the Department of Zoology at the University of Maryland. In 1965, he was appointed resident scientist at the National Zoological Park, while retaining his academic affi liation with the University of Maryland. John remained at the National Zoological Park until 1982, occupying various positions including assistant director for Animal Programs. During his 17-year tenure, he founded and expanded the Department of Zoological Research. His activities were not confi ned entirely to the zoological park setting, but included responsibilities for initiating fi eld research projects. In association with Dr. Edwin Gould, research was conducted in Madagascar during 1966 and 1967. Together with H. K. Beuchner, a fi eld project in Ceylon focusing on the ecology of the Asian elephant was carried out from 1967 to 1970. An important series of ecological studies was launched in Venezuela with several colleagues during the years 1974 to 1982. From 1982 to 2003, John held the Katharine Ordway Chair of Ecosystem Conservation at the University of Florida, Gainesville. He continued research in South America with numerous graduate students while supervising the Ordway-Swisher preserve of some 10,000 acres in Putnam County, Florida. John served as president of the Animal Behavior Society in 1973, and received the C.Hart Merriam award from the American Society of Mammologists. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1980 and was a non-resident member for many years, while living in Bellingham, Washington. John died on July 6, 2003, at his home. He was 68 years old.
CARL R. EKLUND Carl was born on January 27, 1909, and was a native of Tomahawk, Wisconsin. He graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota in 1932. Four years later he received a master’s degree from Oregon State College, and in 1959, after 11 years of night school study, the Univer sity of Maryland awarded him a doctorate. Joining the National Park Service as conservationist in 1933, Carl remained there for three years, and then transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service as a research biologist. He remained in that agency until 1957. His last post with the agency was assistant regional director in Atlanta, Georgia. Carl became chief of the Polar Research Division of the Army Research Offi ce in 1958, on his return from the Antarctic. Carl was chief of polar and arctic research for the Army. He lived in Bethesda, Maryland, and made several trips to polar regions. He accompanied the Byrd expedition to Antarctica in 1939 as an ornithologist. During World War II he served with the Arctic-Desert-Tropic branch of the Air Force, with tours of duty in Greenland and Labrador.
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In the International Geo-physical Year, 1957-58, Carl served for 18 months in Antarctica at the Wilkes Station. On the last trip he solved the riddle of how the emperor penguin incubates its eggs in temperatures of 79 degrees below zero. Results showed that the egg remained, on the average, only about ten degrees lower in temperature than body temperature, de spite the intense cold. While on the Byrd expedition, Carl made one of history’s major Antarctic dog-sled treks, traveling 1284 miles in 84 days, charting 350 miles of coastline. Islands in the King George VI sound were named the Eklund Islands in his honor. Carl died on November 3, 1962, in Philadelphia after suffering a heart attack only days after lecturing at the Museum of Natural Sciences. Carl was married to Harriet and had two daughters, Linda, and Signe. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1956.
DAVID HARRY ELLIS David was born on April 7, 1945, in coastal California where his father built ships for the war. Before school age, he lived in Utah and on a farm in Wyoming, where he gained his fi rst childhood recollections of birds of prey. During his school years, he spent winters in Denver, Colorado, but summers on the farm near Steamboat Springs. Rambling in the valleys and mountains of Colorado fi xated him on a career studying endangered birds and raptors. His undergraduate studies were in Utah, followed by a PhD degree studying behavioral ontogeny of the golden eagle in Montana where he was a student of John Craighead. Thereafter he was spotted by Dr. Ray C. Erickson (another Washington Biologists’ Field Club faithful) and drawn into the small circle of endangered species biologists at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Dave’s Patuxent work initially focused on the masked bobwhite quail. The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1985 in southern Arizona, is a direct outgrowth of that work. He also studied the demography of the peregrine falcon in Arizona and the pallid falcon in Patagonia (Argentina and Chile). In 1985, Patuxent offered him a behaviorist position in Maryland, so for 10 years he abandoned his cherished mountain west. Through work in Maryland he developed a NASA/Patuxent connection that led to satellite telemetry studies with cranes in Canada, western Siberia, and eastern Siberia, and with eagles in Venezuela, Africa, and Mongolia. His falcon work in Asia led to academician status in the Academy of Genghis Khan. His Asian work also led to early retirement to expose what he believed was corruption of various Arab and Arab-fi nanced states in regard to the sale and purchase of raptors for use in the popular sport of falconry. In all, he has traveled to over 50 nations, written over 170 publications, four of which are books including an award-winning book on cranes of the world, now available in Chinese. In 2001, he published an adventure book about the motorized crane migrations and is now completing a volume on eagle adventures, worldwide. Dave now lives in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, Arizona with his wife Cathy. They
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have three grown children and three grandchildren. Dave was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1994. His fondest recollections are of rubbing shoulders with prominent scientists in the friendly atmosphere of Plummers Island and wandering midst the remains of, and monuments to, so many great scientists.
WILLIAM ORRIN EMERY William was born on March 29, 1863, in Vernon, Vermont. He attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute and earned a BS degree in civil engineering in 1885 and in chemistry in 1886. He spent several years in Germany doing applied work in chemistry, physics, geology, and bacteriology, obtaining a PhD degree at the University of Erlangen in 1888 and working in Bonn and Berlin until 1893. He was professor of chemistry at Wabash College from 1895 to 1901 and became chief of the Synthetic Products Lab of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1908. After 1926 he was placed in charge of special investigations of the Food and Drug Administration. He retired in 1933 at the age of 70 and became interested in native plants until his tragic death. According to the coroner, he met an almost instantaneous death on May 3, 1946, at the age of 83, in a fall on a stream bank, which toppled him unconscious into the water of Diffi cult Run in Fairfax County, Virginia. Fairfax police were aided in their three-day search when they found a half-fi lled fl ower basket William was carrying, which contained six newly dug orchid specimens carefully wrapped in a paper bag. He still clutched a small bush in one hand. Police believe he made a desperate effort to recover his balance by grabbing the bush, but that its roots gave way and he fell to his death. He fell only a few feet from a spot where he had planted several wild-growing orchids eight years earlier. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Chemical Society, the Cosmos Club, the Washington Academy of Sciences, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi. William was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1912. He was president from 1924 to 1928 and was active until his death in 1946.
LOUISE HICKOCK EMMONS Louise was born on August 23, 1943, in Montevideo, Uruguay, the daughter of a career U.S. Foreign Service Diplomat. She lived abroad most of her childhood, when her father was posted to Spain, Australia, Ireland, and Malaysia before she returned to the United States to fi nish high school in Vermont. An inspiring high school biology teacher fostered Louise’s early passion for science and nature and helped arrange a summer job working for a researcher at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, where her scientifi c career began. Louise attended Sarah Lawrence College and graduated in 1965. After college she worked for three years as a laboratory technician at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, before entering graduate school in
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the department of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University. As a graduate student she spent 25 months in Gabon doing fi eld work for her thesis on squirrels. After obtaining her PhD degree in 1975, she was awarded a one-year position as chercheur associate with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi que, France, and spent another six months in Gabon and six months in Paris. Following a brief stint at Pennsylvania State University in 1981, she acquired a research associateship and a desk in the Division of Mammals at the Smithsonian Institution. From this position she worked on tropical rainforest mammals in many countries and regions (Neotropics, Borneo, Gabon), and produced over 80 publications. Her best known work is Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: A Field Guide published in 1990. From 1989 to 1997 she was the mammalogist for Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program. The purpose of the Program was to provide countries with biological information on which to base conservation decisions about poorly known regions. As part of this program she went on 12 expeditions and taught in two fi eld courses. Louise was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1995.
RAY CHARLES ERICKSON Ray was born on January 30, 1918, in St. Peter, Minnesota, to parents Isaac and Martha Erickson. He had two sisters and three brothers. He attended Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and received an AB degree in biology in 1941. As an undergraduate he interrupted his studies at Gustavus in 1939 and 1940 to serve in Washington, D.C., in the Biological Survey as a collaborator with the Alabama Polytechnic Unit on food habits analysis. Following graduation, he resumed the collaborator assignment at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center as a biologist on the Patuxent staff studying raptor stomach contents. In September 1941, he enrolled in graduate studies at Iowa State University, Ames, in wildlife management while employed as a technician identifying stomach contents of red foxes for the Iowa Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit. His thesis research was a study of breeding habits of the canvasback duck in southeastern Oregon, and he received the MS degree in the fall of 1942. Ray’s graduate studies were interrupted by World War II, during which he served most of his tour of duty in the southwest Pacifi c in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a boat division deck offi cer for amphibious landing craft from April 1943 through January 1946. Following his release from active duty in 1946, he returned to Iowa State University to continue graduate studies through April 1948, involving the life history and ecology of the canvasback, and he was awarded a PhD degree in zoology. He immediately returned to Malheur Refuge as a wildlife management biologist, where he carried out wildlife inventories, stock grazing-waterfowl nesting relationships studies, and other duties of his assignment. In 1953, he married Helen (Jo) Haworth, and they had three children: Joanne,
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David, and Thomas. Jo passed away on November 17, 1996. In 1955, he moved to Falls Church, Virginia, to head habitat management on 9 to 11 federal refuges. In 1957, he transferred to the Division of Wildlife Research as research staff specialist of wetland ecology. It was at that time he became concerned with the serious plight of the whooping crane and other declining species, and devised a program of research on propagation designed to identify their needs and to determine corrective measures for their recovery through research and more effective management. That program was described in his paper entitled A Federal Research Program for Endangered Wildlife, which was published in the transactions of the Thirty-third North American Wildlife Conference in 1968. For designing and later heading this program, he was awarded the U.S. Department of Interior’s Distinguished Service Award. Ray was a charter member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Committee that developed the so-called “red book” entitled Rare and Endangered Wildlife of the United States. For his work with endangered species he was awarded the National Wildlife Federation’s Special Conservation Award in 1975, the Zoological Society of San Diego’s Wildlife Conservation Award in 1979, the Whooping Crane Conservation Association’s Award in 1980, and Gustavus Adolphus College Distinguished Alumni Award in 1976. He wrote over 35 scientifi c and semi-popular articles and was a member of numerous professional organizations. Ray retired from his post as assistant director, Patuxent, in charge of the Endangered Wildlife Research Program in January 1980 after 35 years of federal service. He continued his interests in nature conservation as a member of the Governor’s Oregon Natural Heritage Advisory Council. Ray was admitted into Who’s Who in America in 2000. In 2001, he married Grace Hayes and enjoys traveling and nature interests in the northwestern U.S. Ray was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1956, was the secretary for several years in the 1960s, and was president from 1967 to 1970. After a 20-year apprenticeship of baking shad and oysters at the spit on Plummers Island under Fran Uhler’s tutelage, he assumed these responsibilities about 1970 and continued until his retirement and departure from the Washington, D.C., area in 1980.
CARL OSCAR ERLANSON Carl was born in Aurora, Illinois, on July 11, 1901. He received BS and MS degrees from the University of Michigan, which also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Sciences degree. From 1927 to 1928, Carl conducted research in Greenland under a fellowship. After joining the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Carl conducted three foreign plant explorations to Mexico, South America, and Scandinavia. In 1945, he served as a civilian botanical advisor with the Chemical Warfare Service on Pearl Island, Panama and received a letter of commendation for his work. After World War II, Carl was appointed an agriculture administrator in the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Agriculture Department. He initiated regional evaluation of foreign plant introductions and the establishment of the National Seed Storage Laboratory to preserve crop germ plasm. He also initiated and was chief of the new Crops Division of the department. In 1958 and 1964, Carl made surveys of agricultural research in the former Soviet Union. As a result of these trips a plant materials exchange program was revived, and direct reciprocal plant explorations were undertaken. Carl was a consultant
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on eight national and international commissions to improve world wide agriculture through increased exchange of plant materials. He received the Meyer Medal in 1965 for his work in introducing new plants to the country. After retirement in 1965, Carl was a resident of Hillandale, Maryland, for many years until 1970, when he and his wife, Clara, moved to Laurel, Maryland. Carl and Clara had three daughters; Anne Owen, Susan Beck, and Janie Clark, and three grandchildren. Carl died in September 1975 of cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Carl was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1935 and ended his membership in 1959.
TERRY LEE ERWIN
Terry was born on December 1, 1940, in California’s wine country at St. Helena. His father was a “tin-knocker” and race car driver in the California circuit and his mother a government clerk. Terry spent his youth trout fi shing in the High Sierra with his maternal grandfather. As a teenager, with prodding from his father, he began building hot cars and was a founding member and later president of the California Conquistadors, a hot rod club in the Bay Area. He put himself through college by working on the Atomic Submarines at Mare Island Naval Base, where he was a helper in the “Asbestos” department. At this time, he made a decision that following in his father’s footsteps was not a good idea and became a serious student under the guidance of the coleopterist, J. Gordon Edwards, at San Jose State College. With Gordon’s enthusiasm and guidance, Terry solved the intractable taxonomy of the California bombardier beetles and went on to write his dissertation on the world fauna under the mentorship of George E. Ball at the University of Alberta, Canada, fi nishing in 1969. Having decided that he wanted to work under the three greatest (living) carabidologists, the fi rst being Professor Ball, Terry obtained postdoctoral fellowships at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard with Philip J. Darlington Jr., and at Lund University, Sweden with Carl H. Lindroth. However, a position opened at the (then) United States National Museum in the Department of Entomology upon the retirement of Oscar Cartwright. With the support of Washington Biologists’ Field Club members Paul Spangler (coleopterist) and Karl Krombein (chairman of entomology), Terry was able to accept the position, and within two months took a year-long sabbatical to Sweden. He returned in 1971, to take up the reins as the junior coleopterist with the department. While in Sweden, the chairmanship of the department changed to Washington Biologists’ Field Club member Paul D. Hurd, who saw on his desk a proposal left by Terry with Dr. Krombein to obtain funding for studies of the California carabid beetles. Hurd, having learned of monies for studies in Central America, crossed out the “California” and wrote in “Panama.” To Terry’s great surprise, he arrived home from Sweden to fi nd himself on the next plane to the Canal Zone. That was the beginning of a lifetime career on studies of biodiversity in neotropical forests. With the publication of a small paper (1½ pages) in 1982 on the beetle fauna of a Panamanian tree species, Terry created a cottage industry in canopy studies and in trying to estimate the number of species on the planet. He had hypothesized in that paper that there were perhaps as many as 30,000,000 species rather than
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the number described at the time of 1 million – an order of magnitude difference. A lot of people were excited, especially those in the conservation business, because if true, we were losing a lot more species that previously thought. In 1981, Terry published a natural history of the carabid beetles of Plummers Island with an analysis of the fauna over the 80 years of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club’s existence using specimens that were collected by many of the founding members, which had been stored unstudied in the Smithsonian’s collections. With the purchase of the land and the subsequent protection of its fl ora, the Club’s objectives resulted in a return of the sycamore dominated riparian forest and restoration of hardwood forests on the knolls, yet the carabid beetles fauna diminished from some 160 species at the turn of century to a mere 98 in the 1970s -- good intentions actually decreased the biodiversity of the heterogeneous fl ora resulting from small farmers in the area. Pollution from up-river factories and open sewers also impacted the shoreline. Terry was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1972 and has served as secretary and on the research committee. His favorite times were as assistant cook to the infamous Jack Clarke, master of the Wild Turkey hash brown potatoes.
FREDERICK GEORGE EVENDEN, JR. Fred was born on April 11, 1921, in Woodburn, Oregon, where he attended elementary and high school. He moved on to Oregon State University and graduated with a BS degree in wildlife management in 1943. He worked as a weather observer for the Army Air Force during World War II. Following the war he returned to school and earned a PhD degree at Oregon State University in 1949, his thesis dealt with the habitat relationships of birds in the Willamette Valley. He married Mildred Martin at this time, and they raised two children, Angela Gayle and Jeanne Anne. Fred’s fi rst professional employment came before he received his PhD degree in 1948 at the Offi ce of River Basin Studies of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, California. He stayed there until 1953, when he became the director for the California Junior Museum in Sacramento. Then in 1956, he established a real estate and fi nancial management business in Sacramento with the help of his wife, who held a business management degree. Later he worked as a private consultant and completed a study of hunter educations programs in the U.S. on a grant from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Fred held an important position in The Wildlife Society as its fi rst full-time executive director, working from 1963 to retirement in 1978. He was a major player in the effort to establish the Renewable Natural Resource Foundation, of which he became vice chairman and chairman of several of its committees. He also was actively involved with the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Urban Wildlife Research Institute, the Natural Resources Council of America, Rachel Carson Trust for the Living Environment,
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National Conservation Committee of Boy Scouts of America, and the American Committee for International Conservation. Fred was elected to Phi Sigma, Sigma Xi, was a fellow of the American Ornithologists Union, an honorary life member of the Multnomah Hunters and Anglers Club of Portland, Oregon, as well as a member of the American Fisheries Society, the Ecological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Throughout his life he was very interested in birding and kept detailed records of bird sightings from everywhere he went. He had seen 1,530 species, which in 1980, placed him as 149th in the world for the number of birds personally identifi ed. He conducted the White House Christmas Bird Count for many years. Fred was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1965. On February 20, 1982, while driving in their car, he and his wife were caught in a mud slide on a road in Oregon and they both perished in that accident.
DAVID FREDERICK FARR David was born on November 15, 1941, in Stockton, California. He grew up in Carmel, California, where he attended the public elementary school and high school. His father was the music teacher and band director at Carmel High School. David entered Humboldt State College in Arcata, California, in 1959 as a forestry major, switching to a botany major after one year. In 1963, he received a BS degree in botany with an emphasis on “lower plants.” From 1963 to 1965, David studied fungi in the Class Trichomycetes with Robert Lichtwardt at the University of Kansas, and received an MS degree in 1965. David continued his study of fungi working on aquatic Phycomycetes with Frederick Sparrow at the University of Michigan and Robert Paterson at Virginia Tech. Summers from 1962 through 1969 were spent taking courses and conducting research at the University of Michigan Biological Station at Douglas Lake. In 1975, he received a PhD degree from Virginia Tech. His thesis was entitled Aquatic Phycomycetes in the Lotic Environment. Since 1975, David has worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland. His research is in the area of plant pathogenic microfungi. Current work involves Septoria and allied genera, which are pathogens of blueberries and other economically important crops. He is the senior author of Fungi on Plants and Plant Products in the U.S., which is a widely used reference on the nomenclature, taxonomy, and distribution of fungi in the U.S. He often teaches a course on mushrooms for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School and has given many talks to local organizations about mushrooms and fungi. David early on understood the importance of computer databases and has led the efforts of his laboratory in completing the computerization of the National Fungus Collections and the Stevenson Reference Library. These databases as well as others are available through the internet. In 1963, David married Ellen Roberta Milhous in Arcata, California. David and his wife live in Beltsville, Maryland. David was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1979.
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ALBERT KENRICK FISHER Albert was born in Ossining (then called Sing Sing), New York, on March 21, 1856. He was the son of Hiram and Susan E. Fisher. His home was on a hill overlooking the Hudson River and was surrounded by countryside. He spent much time as a child in the tidal marshes along Croton Point and in the surrounding hills. He went to Holbrook’s Military High School and attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, graduating with medical training in 1879. He married Alwilda Merritt and they raised four children: Harry, Ethel, Walter, and Alberta. After working together with 21 others to found the American Ornithologists’ Union and set up studies of migration and distribution, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, a friend of Albert, convinced him to help him found the Branch of Economic Ornithology in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Division of Entomology, in 1885. On July 1, 1886, the branch they were founding was given separate status as the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy. At this time he wrote The Hawks and Owls of the United States in Their Relation to Agriculture, which was published in 1893 and quickly became a fundamental work in the fi eld. Albert played a role again in 1905 in the creation of a Bureau of Biological Survey, which focused on biological explorations of relatively unknown areas of North America. He later put signifi cant effort into making the Bureau of Biological Survey an important part of the Fish and Wildlife Service. He retired in 1931. Albert was involved in several major expeditions, including the Death Valley Expedition of 1891, the Harriman Alaska Expedition in 1899, and the Pinchot South Seas Expedition in 1929. From these expeditions he added many birds to the collection of the U.S. National Museum. The more than 150 other papers that he wrote covered topics such as birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, various invertebrates, and biographical sketches. He was a member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, and the International Association of Game and Fish Commissioners; associate member of the Boone and Crocket Club, the Baird Ornithological Club, and the Cosmos Club; honorary member of the American Game Protective Association and the Cooper Ornithological Club; and corresponding member of the Linnaean Society of New York. He was an active member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club for more that 45 years, being elected in 1903 and bringing hundreds of friends to Plummers Island on excursions over the years. He served as president from 1906 to 1911. Albert participated in the management and study of Plummers Island, as well as being a famed excellent cook for the shad bakes and oyster roasts. Albert was very popular among Washington Biologists’ Field Club members, who referred to him as A.K. His last visit to the Island was only a few weeks before his death. His ashes were placed there after he died on June 12, 1948, in Washington, D.C., by Fran Uhler and Arnold Nelson. They buried his ashes by a twinleaf fl ower as A.K. had requested. A memorial plaque was installed on the Island for this popular and much admired naturalist.
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VAGN FOLKMANN FLYGER Today there are no storks in Denmark, but in 1922 there were many. That year, on January 14th , one of the storks dropped Vagn into the Danish city of Aalborg. The following year his family moved to Jamestown, New York, where his father got a job in a furniture factory. Western New York was a great place to grow up because here a boy could catch more snakes in a morning (none of which were poisonous) than any other place in the world. This combination of snakes and other critters that were so easily caught, plus very supportive parents and teachers, turned him into a nature nerd. He decided to become either a herpetologist or entomologist, and to prepare for this calling he attended Cornell University for two years. But when a fracas broke out in Hawaii in 1941 he enlisted in the army and got a free cruise and tour, with all expenses paid, to six European countries. The natives of one country were decidedly unfriendly so the men dug holes in the ground to hide in if the natives attacked. These holes were great traps for snakes, shrews, mice, hedgehogs, and other creatures that fell into them. He became distinguished among the 615 members of his Combat Engineer Battalion for saving men from a horror worse than death, contact with a snake. For this Vagn received the good conduct medal. The army set him free in 1946, so he went on to fi nish at Cornell, got an MS degree at Penn State and an ScD degree at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Both his MS degree thesis and ScD dissertation dealt with gray squirrel ecology. Upon fi nishing school in 1955 he immediately got a job at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at Solomons, Maryland, and later with the University of Maryland, where he continued research with squirrels until he retired in 1987. In 1957, he was side-tracked into working with white-tailed deer. Over the next three years, using syringe guns and traps, he captured about 1500 deer at the Aberdeen Proving Ground and released them in those parts of Maryland, where few or no deer existed at that time. Currently few Maryland residents appreciate his efforts! At that time farmers in other parts of the state complained of deer eating their crops, so he thought about ways to help these farmers. By combining the marvelous experience in the Combat Engineers with the outstanding education from Penn State, he came up with an excellent idea. Why not lay out a mine fi eld using M-80 fi recrackers? This turned out to be a fantastic success! After a week of explosions no deer dared enter the fi elds for over six months, even when the mines were removed. There was one disadvantage - careless people handling them had fi ngers blown off. The experience of capturing deer with a syringe gun led him to spend two summers on a remote Arctic island with a group of Inuit to demonstrate that whales could be killed humanely by shooting them with a syringe full of succinylcholine chloride. As he sat on that cold wind-blown island he often thought, “How did I get myself into this?” He went off to the Arctic to tag the fi rst polar bears in what became an international research program. He made three trips to the Arctic and wondered, “Why am I doing this? Maryland forests are warm, green, and cozy compared to the place where polar bears live.” Therefore, and for the following reasons, he confi ned his work to squirrels: (1) Squirrels do not bite hard. Compare squirrel bites to polar bear bites! (2) Nobody gets a hernia from lifting a squirrel. Try lifting a deer, or bear, or even a whale. (3) Squirrel research can be done in one’s backyard without going off to the ends of the world. (4) Squirrels taste good, don’t have nasty diseases and can be prepared with any chicken recipe. (5) Squirrels are plentiful and out only during daylight hours. It is not necessary to chase around in the woods at night, as with deer, to catch them. (6) Kind friends and students bring road-killed squirrels to his offi ce when asked to do so. Asking them to bring bears, deer, or whales to his offi ce would be unreasonable.
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He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1975 and was a very popular member for over 30 years. Vagn died at his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, on January 9, 2006, and left instructions for his body to be donated to science.
HARVEY LLOYD FORSGREN Harv was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 30, 1955. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in fi sheries management from Utah State University in 1976, and a Master of Science degree in natural resource management from Humboldt State University in 1980. Harv began his career with the Forest Service as a volunteer in Wyoming in 1975. He joined the agency permanently in 1978, and worked fi rst to develop a vegetation classifi cation system and later as a fi sheries biologist on the Chugach National Forest in Anchorage, Alaska. Subsequently, he worked as a fi sheries biologist on the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho, and on the Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon. He became the fi sheries program leader in the agency’s Intermountain Region headquartered in Ogden, Utah, in 1988. Beginning in 1991, he served as the National Fisheries Program Leader in Washington, D.C., for several years before being named assistant director of the Wildlife, Fish, and Rare Plant staff. In June of 1998, Harv was named national director for that staff. As national director, he had broad responsibilities for demonstrating conservation leadership and ensuring the wildlife, fi sh, rare plants and threatened, endangered, sensitive species programs played an integral role in the implementation of ecosystem management. In that position he helped shape national policy related to conservation of Pacifi c salmon and steelhead and the agency’s strategic plan, and he proposed changes to national forest planning regulations. Harv became the regional forester for the Pacifi c Northwest Region (U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service), Portland, Oregon, in January 2000, with responsibility for the management of 25 million acres of national forest lands located predominately in Oregon and Washington. In July 2000, he was named regional forester for the Southwestern Region, where he administers National Forest System lands in Arizona, New Mexico, and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. His predominate focus is on restoration of fi re adapted systems across the Southwest. Harv lives in Tijeras, New Mexico, with his wife Julie. They have two grown daughters: Myrica and Hailey. He and his family enjoy international travel and cuisine, music, photography, and church service. Harv was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000. Unfortunately shortly after joining he was transferred to the west coast so has not able to be an active member.
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MERCEDES S. FOSTER Mercedes was born in Oakland, California, on August 16, 1942, into an urban-oriented family, her exposure to wildlife and the outdoors being limited to brief periods at summer camp. In her senior year as a zoology (pre-med) major at the University of California, Berkeley (from which she received both her BA and MA degrees), she took a course in vertebrate natural history, and her life was changed forever. She abandoned plans for medical school, and after additional graduate studies at Berkeley and the University of Chicago, received a PhD degree in biology from the University of South Florida in Tampa, in 1974. During the course of her graduate training, Foster completed an advanced course in the biology of tropical vertebrates with the Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica, and as they say, the rest is history. She has been studying birds (and other organisms) in the tropics ever since. Her work has focused largely on the evolution of lek behavior in birds, and male-male cooperation in reproduction. This interest expanded into studies of bird-plant interactions (nutrient rewards and seed dispersal), refl ecting the fact that numerous lek birds are frugivorous. Many Nearctic migrant birds are also frugivorous during migration and in winter, which has led to research on feeding ecology and habitat use by migrants and habitat enhancement as a tool for managing passage migrants. As a result of her experience in the tropics, Mercedes became extremely concerned about the protection of such areas and their biodiversity. She also was concerned with the training of local scientists and conservationists and became active in these areas. Her conservation activities, among others, include involvement in numerous training workshops, serving as the scientifi c advisor for the National Bio-Inventory Program of Paraguay, a founder and co-coordinator of the Latin American Library Enhancement Program, and a founding director of the American Bird Conservancy. Believing that conservation of biodiversity must be grounded in sound qualitative and quantitative knowledge of the biota of an area, she initiated and serves as the director/editor of a program to develop and publish a series of handbooks providing “standard methods for measuring and monitoring the biodiversity” of different groups of organisms. The ultimate goal of the program is to ensure that studies are repeatable and that data obtained can be compared across sites and through time. She also has served as editor of Ornithological Monographs (1977-85) and on the editorial board of various professional publications. After holding teaching appointments at the University of South Florida and the University of California, Berkeley, Mercedes joined the Museum Section of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., as a research zoologist and curator of birds, a refl ection of her prior experience working in natural history museums and with museum specimens. That group is now the Biological Survey Project of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (Biological Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey). Her main focus is the use of museum specimens for ecological and behavior projects, a function with signifi cant, untapped potential. Mercedes was elected as the fi rst female member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1995.
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JAMES ABBOTT FOWLER Jim was born on July 15, 1916, in Skowhegan, Maine. He moved as a child to Washington, D.C., and was educated in Washington, including Central High School and the George Washington University, from which he received a BS degree in 1940 and an MA degree in 1943. While attending college he was employed during the summer as a ranger-naturalist with the National Capital Parks of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Among his duties was to give an interpretive talk on the history and natural history of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal on a mule-drawn barge, which plied the waters of the canal between Georgetown and Cabin John. After graduation from college and during World War II, he went to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Zoological Division, as a parasitologist. He also taught high school biology and general science at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. In 1947, he began his career in museums by accepting employment at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, where he was director of education. In 1957, he left Philadelphia for Michigan, where he was employed as curator of education at Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfi eld Hills. In 1961, he became director of education at Henry Ford Museum/Greenfi eld Village in Dearborn, Michigan, where he remained until 1982 when he retired. At Cranbrook, in addition to his primary educational responsibilities, he was elected a research associate in zoology, a position which he held in retirement. He was responsible for the Department of Herpetology and the herpetological collection and devoted two days a week to this responsibility as a volunteer. He was actively involved in herpetology since high school, and his master’s thesis was A Distributional Study of the Amphibians and Reptiles of the District of Columbia and Vicinity with Emphasis on Physiography. He authored some 40 short herpetological papers. He was a member of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (1937), the Herpetologists League, and the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, as well as the Maryland Herpetological Society. His interest in amphibians and reptiles whetted his appetite for cave exploring, and he became a member of the District of Columbia Speleological Society, which amalgamated with other regional cave groups to become the National Speleological Society of which he has been a member (and later a fellow) for over 50 years. As a museum professional he has been a member of the American Association of Museums since 1942. He served on the Museum Council from 1971 to 1975 and was a regional representative from 1978 to 1980. He is a past president of the Midwest Museums Conference, from which he received a distinguished service award and honorary membership in 1981, as well as an honorary member of the Michigan Museums Association. The highlight of his museum career was as a participant in a nine-week Scandinavian Seminar in 1965, involving outdoor/folk museums in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. This seminar was sponsored by the American Association of Museums through a Fulbright grant. Other professional affi liations include the Michigan Audubon Society (life member and past president), Michigan Academy of Art, Science and Letters, Michigan Chapter Nature Conservancy (board member), Seven Ponds Nature Center (past board chairman), and Sigma Xi (Associate). Jim was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1946 and then became a non-resident member, living in Troy, Michigan. He now lives in a retirement home in Westland, Michigan.
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THOMAS M. FRANKLIN Tom was born on the last day of spring, 1950, in Washington, D.C. His family moved to University Park, Maryland, during his fi rst few months of life. He enjoyed a middle-class upbringing in suburban Maryland, where he became fascinated with birds in the community, especially the red-headed woodpeckers and crows that frequented the mature oak forest surrounding the Franklin home. Frequent weekend trips to family properties in Northern and Central Virginia introduced him to outdoor sports, including hunting and fi shing. An interest in quail hunting with pointing dogs evolved into a life-long fascination with the pursuit of wild game and the companionship of English setters. Tom’s appreciation of the natural world was there from the beginning. An innate curiosity about wildlife led him to study wildlife management at the University of Maryland. Following graduation, he took a position as the fi rst wildlife biologist employed by the newly formed Urban Wildlife Research Center in 1973. It was there that he became acquainted with the most important and infl uential person of his professional career -- Dr. Daniel L. Leedy. Dan joined the Board of Directors of the Urban Center and over the years became a mentor to Tom. There was no better role model for a young biologist to emulate than Dan Leedy and Tom was most proud of receiving the Daniel L. Leedy Urban Wildlife Conservation Award in 1989. Tom was betrothed to Catherine G. Hughes in 1976. They produced two fi ne boys, Michael and Daniel, between 1981 and 1983. Tom became executive director of the Urban Center in 1987, where he directed program of urban wildlife research and management. The Urban Center investigated ways of protecting and conserving wildlife within urban and suburban areas using a multi-disciplinary approach. In 1983, Tom left the Urban Center to expand his horizons with The Wildlife Society, the association of professional wildlife biologists and managers. His fi rst role was as fi eld director, in charge of managing the Society’s chapters and regional groups that are distributed throughout North America. This position afforded him the opportunity to travel extensively and introduced him to many of the ecosystems of the continent. He also led the Society’s conservation affairs activities. After he joined the Society, he completed a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. During 1991, he was selected as the fi rst wildlife policy director of The Wildlife Society where he worked on public policy issues with the Congress and federal agencies. Tom left The Wildlife Society in 2005 and accepted employment with the Izaak Walton League of America as their conservation director. His life-long concern for suburban wildlife conservation and new interest in nature-related business led Tom and his wife to establish a wildlife retail enterprise in 1996. The Wildlife Authority is an independent, family-owned wild bird and nature store created in Ellicott City, Maryland. This opened his eyes to a whole new realm of small business management and allowed him to expand his interest in “backyard bird” conservation in the local community. Early in his professional career, Tom qualifi ed as a certifi ed wildlife biologist. He has published articles in professional and lay publications and has made presentations at numerous conferences and symposia on the topics of urban/suburban wildlife management, association leadership, and natural resources policy. Tom has devoted much personal and professional energy during the 1990s to advocating increased funding for comprehensive wildlife conservation through the Teaming With Wildlife campaign at the national and state levels. Tom was elected to become a Fellow of The Wildlife Society as well as vice president in 2006. Tom was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1984 and served as chair of the membership committee from 2000 to 2006.
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CLARENCE GORDON FREDINE Gordon was born on August 15, 1909, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He attended Hamline University, Saint Paul, and received a BS degree in biology in 1932 and then did graduate work in zoology at the University of Minnesota from 1932 to 1935. He served as a lieutenant in the Navy as a malaria control offi cer in the Pacifi c theater during World War II. He noted that the Navy had more casualties from malaria than they did from the Japanese, and controlling malaria was very important for victory in the Pacifi c theater. Gordon was a biologist supervisor, Civilian Conservation Corps, Minnesota State Forests from 1935 to 1936 and a biologist with the Game and Fish Division of the Minnesota Conservation Department from 1935 to 1941. He worked as an assistant professor in wildlife at Purdue University from 1941 to 1947. Gordon was the regional supervisor, River Basin Studies, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Atlanta, Georgia from 1947 to 1952. He made signifi cant contributions to knowledge about America’s wetland habitats as a wildlife research biologist supervisor from 1952 to 1955. He transferred in 1955 to the National Park Service as principal naturalist (biology), where his interest in the application of ecological principles infl uenced the Service’s research and wildlife management programs. As principal park planner, he served in the Mission 66 program, from 1962 to 1964 and became chief of the National Park Service’s Division of International Affairs in 1964. Gordon helped organize and expand student conservation programs and helped develop the service’s policy leading to increased international activities. He assisted in the establishment of the Latin American Committee on National Parks and organized the Inter-American Conference on Renewable Natural Resources in Argentina and a joint United States-Japan Park Management Panel. Gordon was a charter member of The Wildlife Society, serving as executive secretary, 1960-63, vice president, 1966-67, and was elected honorary member in 1964. He received U.S. Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award in 1967. He coauthored Wetlands of the United States: Their Extent and Their Value to Waterfowl and Other Wildlife, published in 1956. He retired from the National Park Service in 1973 after serving as staff director for the Second World Conference on National Parks in 1972. As a volunteer, he was assistant editor of Parks Magazine from 1973 to 1978. Gordon was executive director of the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation from 1975 to 1981. Subsequently he became coordinator of the volunteer advisory staff for the American Fisheries Society and received its Distinguished Service Award in 1983. He served as a volunteer for the American Fisheries Society during the 1990s. He married Edith Handy, his wife of 72 years, in June of 1934. They honeymooned in Yellowstone National Park, where he was a seasonal park ranger. They had a son, Jack, and a daughter, Patt. They had four grandchildren, two boys and two girls. Gordon was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1956, was president from 1973 to 1976, and was selected as an honorary member in 1985. Gordon died at home on August 8, 2006, from cancer of the larynx. He had a great love for Plummers Island and all the islanders. His family chose to have a private service and his ashes were dispersed on Plummers Island.
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OLIVER MYLES FREEMAN Oliver was born on July 16, 1891, in Redwood City, California. He received an AB degree at the University of Tennessee in 1916, taught high school in Chattanooga from 1916 to 1917, studied at the University of Virginia in the summer of 1917, and began a second year of teaching high school in Asheville, SC, in the fall of 1917. He left this job to join the U.S. Army on November 20, 1917. He was honorably discharged on July 3, 1919, after serving with the Medical Detachment in France and attaining the rank of corporal. He joined the U.S. Bureau of Plant Industry on October 8, 1919, when F. V. Coville hired him as a clerk and herbarium assistant in the Economic Botany Herbarium. He took classes in zoology at George Washington University from 1920 to 1921, but never earned a graduate degree. He was promoted to assistant botanist in 1926. Later in this same year, Congress passed legislation establishing the National Arboretum, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture began acquiring land around the Mt. Hamilton site. Oliver continued to work in the herbarium, where he did plant identifi cations (at that time, the herbarium averaged nearly 20,000 plant identifi cations per year for other government bureaus and departments, agricultural professionals, and the general public). He assisted Coville with research on blueberry cultivation and hybridization, work that led to the establishment of a commercial blueberry industry in the United States, while carrying out his own hybridization projects. By the mid-1930s, he was spending most of his time on the development of the new National Arboretum, supervising the construction work (largely done by the Civilian Conservation Corps) and the fi rst plantings. He was responsible for the collection of herbarium specimens to document the original fl ora of the site. Oliver’s assistant was Grace G. Freeman, who had the title of “Under Scientifi c Helper.” Mrs. Freeman was born on April 4, 1883, and she and Oliver were married in Washington, D.C., on December 16, 1920. Oliver is best remembered for crossing work he carried out using native tree species. There is a group of Magnolia cultivars named after him; the so-called Freeman hybrids, derived from Magnolia grandifl ora x virginiana crosses that Oliver made in 1930 and 1931. Two of his progeny were released as cultivars by the National Arboretum, Magnolia ‘Freeman’ in 1962, and Magnolia ‘Maryland” in 1971. Publications include a pamphlet on the trees and shrubs of Lafayette Park with Coville in 1932, including a map showing the trees and shrubs and a few pages of comments on the more interesting trees with several photographs. He wrote the fi rst number in the National Arboretum Contributions series, summarizing the work he did on the original fl ora of the National Arboretum site. He retired on October 31, 1950, with 31 years of service with U.S. Department of Agriculture. He lived in the Carolinas and Florida during his retirement. He died in February, 1979, in Pensacola, Florida. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1925 and his membership ended in 1952.
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THOMAS H. FRITTS Tom was born on April 23, 1945, in central Illinois and grew up on a farm so far from other human residents that the Fritts farm had to have its own tom cat. Each year, in the spring, Tom and his family would look forward to the early breeding of bull frogs in the nearby cow tank, because wading for frogs furnished an opportunity for a good bath at the same time. Childhood memories include going to town on Saturday night to watch haircuts, chasing meadow voles down the plow furrows, and catching carp in the local ponds using Wheaties for bait. Tom began his professional involvement in herpetology during his last year of undergraduate school, when he had a chance to go to Mexico with three graduate students from the University of Illinois’ Department of Zoology. Not only did he discover the world of tropical reptiles, but equally important were exotic foods like tortillas, avocados, and hot sauce. He’s never been the same! He returned to Mexico a year later to conduct research meant to disprove that all-female lizard species existed, but in the end he named a new species of all-female lizard hypothesized to have resulted from hybridization of two bisexual species. His father never really understood the paper. After completing his Master’s Degree in zoology at the University of Illinois in 1968, he moved to the University of Kansas only to discover that the corn was not as tall there as in Illinois, but that opportunities to go to South America would provide access to more new lizard species and more kinds of hot sauce. After completing his PhD degree working on high altitude lizards in the Andes, he took a teaching position with St. Edward’s University. He moved to San Diego where he became Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Six years in a museum began to fray Tom’s nerves so he looked for a prestigious job as a government researcher, beginning as station leader for a Fish and Wildlife research project at Tulane University in New Orleans. Equipped with a World War II bomber and a fi stful of contract dollars, he and his group conducted studies of the distribution of birds, mammals, and sea turtles in outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing areas. In 1982, Tom transferred to a Fish and Wildlife Service fi eld station in the University of New Mexico’s Department of Biology, where he continued work in the Southwestern United States, Mexico, and occasionally even South America. In 1984, he began trying to apply his tropical experience to the problems caused by the brown tree snakes and he was transferred to Washington, D.C. Tom’s studies on snakes led to ecological studies on lizards, analyses of power outages due to snakes, recipes for how to use roasted snakes, workshops on exotic islands at risk of receiving infestations of the snake, and yes, more kinds of hot sauce, more exotic foods, and a vast collection of Aloha shirts which increased his visibility in the Washington area. It is widely known that he was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1990 for his knowledge of snakes, sauces, and shirts from Hawaii. He is the only member of the Club that can catch a black snake while stirring Wild Turkey into the potatoes. Others would have drunk the booze, jumped out the window, and burned the potatoes!
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HENRY CORBIN FULLER Henry was born on November 13, 1879, in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he obtained his basic education in chemistry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After graduating in 1901, he worked in commercial facilities analyzing drugs and chemicals used in the production of medicine. He later entered the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a chemist under the supervision of Dr. Harvey C. Wiley, to whom he referred as his mentor. His work was mostly in regard to problems incident to the Food and Drug Act of 1906. He contributed most of the analytical work for the pure-food research conducted by Dr. Wiley that was published in 1914 by Good Housekeeping. During World War I, he was with the Institute of Industrial Research supervising drug propagation on a commercial scale and managing a drug farm in Virginia where digitalis and other important medicinal plants were grown. He published three books on chemistry and a number of shorter papers on the subject. His most notable work, The Chemistry and Analysis of Drugs and Medicines, containing 1072 pages, appeared in 1920. Henry had a strong interest in wildlife, but was especially attracted to ornithology and lost no opportunity to watch and study birds in their natural haunts. He made a trip through the West to the Pacifi c states and British Columbia with A. K. Fisher, where every opportunity was made to broaden his view of the wilder country and its animal and plant life. Nothing gave him a greater thrill than to come across a new bird to add to his life list. He also was a philatelist of note and had a collection of over 27,000 stamps, representing about one fourth of all varieties ever issued. Henry was a well-known chemist and nature lover who had many acquaintances. He belonged to many organizations, including the American Ornithologists’ Union, Baird Ornithological Club, Washington Academy of Sciences, Cosmos Club, and a number of chemistry societies. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1910 and served as president from 1916 to 1919. Henry died suddenly on August 26, 1942, in New Haven, Connecticut, as he was returning to his home in Washington. Henry and his wife had two daughters and a son. Their son, Henry Shepard Fuller, was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1949.
HENRY SHEPARD FULLER Shep, as he was called by his family and associates at Plummers Island to distinguish him from his father, Henry C. (Washington Biologists’ Field Club from 1910 to 1942), was born in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1917. Some of his earliest recollections were of the many trips he made with his parents and sisters to Plummers Island. There he came in contact with distinguished naturalists whose specialized interests included entomology, botany, mammalogy, and ornithology. From them Shep received a broad acquaintance with the diverse forms of life and developed a lifelong love of nature. He received his early education in the Washington public schools. In college he majored in chemistry and received a BS degree in that fi eld from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1937 and an MD degree cum laude studiorum deculiarum causa in 1941 from Harvard Medical School. Following a year of internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Shep was commissioned a fi rst lieutenant in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army. He was assigned to a fi eld hospital that was sent to the China-Burma-India theater. Shep undertook fi eld studies in Burma and Assam on the ecology of scrub typhus and the
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bionomics and taxonomy of its chigger vector. The importance of his investigations led to his subsequent assignment to the U.S. Typhus Commission for the duration of the war. He was promoted to captain during the war and received a terminal leave promotion to major. The Army awarded him the Bronze Star medal for his meritorious achievements in the ecological study of scrub typhus. He also received the medal of the U.S. Typhus Commission. Following military service, Harvard awarded him a traveling fellowship that enabled him to continue postgraduate studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He returned to the Harvard School of Public Health, from 1949 to 1953, where he was fi rst a research associate in medical entomology and then an assistant professor of microbiology. He was awarded a master of public health magna cum laude from Harvard in 1951. Shep returned to government service in 1953 at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research as assistant chief, and later chief of the Department of Entomology. In 1956, he was appointed chief of the Department of Rickettsial Diseases and served there until 1963 when he was appointed chief of the Department of Virus and Rickettsial Diseases at the Army Medical General Laboratory at Camp Zama, Japan. He died there of a sudden heart attack in February, 1964. Shep was a brilliant scholar with a wide range of interests. He was especially concerned with mites, lice, and fl eas of medical importance. His 50 plus publications emphasized ecology and systematics of acarine disease vectors and the ecology and epidemiology of those diseases. At the time of his death he had made signifi cant progress on a history of medical entomology. Shep was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1949. He was chairman of the house and grounds committee from 1958 to 1962, and served as elected member of the board of managers from 1961 to 1963. Shep performed “grouse and hounds” (his term) committee chairman with great devotion, and at times with a degree of personal inconvenience. On one lovely spring day Shep, wearing elbow length, heavy rubber veterinarian gloves, assumed the uninviting task of emptying the well-rotted contents of the box latrine into heavy grocery sacks, which were then carted downhill. This exploit prompted Shep’s cryptic notation in the Club register that “we removed certain formed objects as well as grossly amorphous material from the smaller of the two buildings on the property.” With Shep’s untimely death, medical science lost an original and distinguished investigator who had accomplished much. His trenchant wit, warmhearted interest, and general spirit of camaraderie made him a cherished companion of his intimate friends.
VICKI ANN FUNK Vicki was born on November 26, 1947, in Owensboro, Kentucky, where she grew up, except for stays on or near Air Force bases in Virginia, Texas, and Ohio, all of which ended before she started primary school. Her father, Edwin Joseph, was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force and for a private company, Texas Gas Transmission Corporation, located in Owensboro. Her mother raised three children: Edwin Jr., Vicki Ann, and Jared Kirk. Vicki attended Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky from 1965 to 1969, changing her major several times, including physics, chemistry, and history before settling on biology. The plan of attending medical school was discarded after a summer of working in a hospital as a volunteer. During college Vicki worked as a camp counselor and modeled clothes at local stores, and during Christmas she was the fastest gift wrapper in Anderson’s Department Store. After she graduated Vicki spent over two years in Germany working part-time
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and traveling. Returning from Germany she taught high school for one year and then spent a summer at the Hancock Biological Station on Kentucky Lake where she fell in love with fi eld work. It was hard for her to believe that one could study and work at something so wonderful. She entered Murray State University’s graduate program in biology in the fall of 1973 where she was employed as a graduate teaching assistant. Her advisor was Dr. Marian Fuller, and she earned her MS degree in the summer of 1975. Her thesis, A Floristic and Geologic Survey of Selected Seeps of Calloway County, Kentucky, was published in Castanea and the Transactions of the Kentucky Academy of Sciences. In 1975, Vicki went to Ohio State University to work on a PhD degree with Ron Stuckey. She spent part of that summer at Stone Lab in Lake Erie studying aquatic plants. After becoming enamored with tropical botany, she switched to working with the fl owering plant family Compositae, under the directory of Tod Stuessy. During her fi ve years at Ohio State, she spent nearly a year in Mexico and Central America, with an additional trip to Colombia, collecting Compositae. Her thesis, The Systematics of Montanoa Cerv. (Compositae), was completed in October 1980 and she graduated in December of that year. Her thesis was published in the Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden in 1982. In 1976, she found a book in the library by Willi Hennig, and through the Science Citation Index she located a “nest” of cladists at the American Museum of Natural History. The search for the best way to use systematic data to study evolution was a big part of her graduate training. After working for years in small herbaria she was determined to spend some time in a large herbarium. She applied for and received a postdoctoral internship at the New York Botanical Garden where she studied the Compositae with Art Cronquist and spent one day a week at the American Museum of Natural History. Just after arriving in New York she gave a presentation at the American Museum and learned about “New York Rules” and after that nothing fazed her when it came to giving talks. In October 1981, she was hired as Curator of Compositae, Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution. Throughout the early 1980s she spent quite a bit of time learning about the Andes, quite a change from Mexico. At the suggestion of Jose Cuatrecasas, she began a revision of Werneria, which required many fi eld trips to the high elevations of the Andes (ca. 5000 m). She immediately became a committed high-elevation botanist. At her high school reunion in 1985 she was selected as the graduate with the most esoteric job. In 1986, she agreed to help with the Flora of the Guianas program thinking it would take only a few hours a month. Since 1987, she has been director of what is now the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program, a multi-disciplinary international program to document, study, and preserve the biodiversity of northeastern South America. Her research interests are in the tropical Compositae, cladistics, biogeography, conserving biodiversity of tropical areas, the furtherance of systematics, and generally causing trouble. She is author or co-author of over 130 publications including several books. She has served on the USA Board of Directors for the International Association of Plant Taxonomists, as council member, treasurer, and president of the Society of Systematic Biologists (Zoology), and as member-at-large of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and is president-elect of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists and the International Biogeography Society. In 2000 Vicki and her colleagues founded “The International Compositae Alliance,” which fosters work in the family and hosts international meetings. In 2004, Vicki was promoted to senior scientist. Vicki was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1999.
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IRA NOEL GABRIELSON Ira (“Gabe”) was born on September 27, 1889, in Sioux Rapids, Iowa. He was the son of Frank August and Ida Jansen Gabrielson. He received a BA degree in biology from Morningside College in 1912. In the summers of 1911 and 1913, he carried out graduate studies at Iowa State University’s Lakeside Laboratory on Lake Okoboji. He received an honorary LLD in 1941. Gabe’s fi rst professional job was a three-year stint, 1912-15, teaching high-school biology at Marshalltown, Iowa. Thereafter, he joined the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey and worked mainly in the West for the next two decades in fi eld and supervisory positions involving economic ornithology, food habits research, rodent control, and game management. He became an authority on the fl ora and fauna of the montane West, publishing his fi rst book, Western American Alpines, in 1932. In 1935, Gabe transferred to Washington, D.C., at the behest of Jay N. “Ding” Darling, as assistant chief of Division of Wildlife Research, and became chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey that same year. Gabe and Ding were personally credited with the establishment of Patuxent Research Refuge in 1939. In 1940, he was appointed as the fi rst director of the Fish and Wildlife Service in U.S. Department of Interior. During World War II, he served as deputy coordinator of fi sheries with responsibility for sustaining seafood production essential to conduct of the war. He was appointed by the U.S. Department of State as U.S. delegate to the 1946 International Whaling Conference. In 1946, Gabe resigned government service to assume the presidency of the Wildlife Management Institute, a post he held until 1970 when he became the Institute board’s chairman. As the United States delegate in 1948, he helped found the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. In 1961, he helped organize and then became president of World Wildlife Fund (United States) and a trustee of the World Wildlife Fund (International). Gabe served on the advisory committee of Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. He was a member of the Secretary of the Interior’s advisory committee on Fish and Wildlife for many years, and was later a member of the Secretary’s advisory board on Wildlife Management. He served as chairman of the citizens committee on Natural Resources, chairman of the coordinating committee on the Potomac River Valley, a member of the national conservation committee, Boy Scouts of America, and a member of the committee on pest control and wildlife relationships for the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. Gabe directed Wildlife Management Institute staff studies of the organization, authorities, and programs of wildlife agencies in 31 states and two Canadian provinces. Gabe authored Wildlife Conservation (1941), Wildlife Refuges (1943), and Wildlife Management (1951). He coauthored Birds of Oregon (1940), The Birds of Alaska (1958), and A Guide to the Most Familiar American Birds (1949). He edited the Fisherman’s Encyclopedia (1951) and New Fish Encyclopedia (1964). Gabe received the Distinguished Service Medal of the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1948, the Aldo Leopold Memorial Award Medal of The Wildlife Society in 1953, the Audubon Medal of the National Audubon Society in 1949, the Hugh H. Bennett Medal of Friends of the Land in 1958, the Distinguished Service Award of the American Forestry Association in 1962, and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Conservation Service Award in 1964. He received honorary doctorates from Oregon State College (1936), Morningside College (1941), Middlebury College (1959), and Colby College (1969). Highly charismatic, energetic, humorous, intelligent, and devoted to science, Gabe was viewed by many
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of his contemporaries as on a par with his friend Aldo Leopold in terms of wildlife conservation gains during their lifetimes. Gabe was married to Clar Speer on August 17, 1912. They had four daughters, Clara June, Iris V., Dorothy Jean, and Grace Gail. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1935 and became an honorary member in 1974. Dr. Gabe died in Arlington, Virginia, on September 7, 1977.
ALFRED LUNT GARDNER Al was born on November 10, 1937, a fraternal twin, in Salem, Massachusetts, to Waldo J. and Ruth L. Gardner. He spent early childhood through the third grade in Salem (on Gallows Hill). Miss Brennan, a third grade teacher and amateur ornithologist, kept a large glass case in the corner of her classroom, in which she displayed mounted songbirds. These specimens and Miss Brennan’s class outings to nearby marshes and fi elds sparked his initial interests in natural history. His family moved to a farm in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1947, where he practically lived in the woods fi shing, hunting, and trapping. He spent the school year of 1948-49 in eastern Arizona, where he attended school in Duncan, rode horses, and stalked lizards, jackrabbits, and snakes in the desert. Primitive “indoor” plumbing, water from a windmill, and no electricity or telephone made for a simpler life. The summer of 1949 was spent in hills of Santa Monica, California learning fi rst hand about California quail and poison oak. He returned to North Andover that year in time to start the seventh grade and a more serious hunting and trapping program. As a high school freshman he sold his fi rst fur and learned to recognize the local game warden by sight at a distance suffi cient to keep from being caught. He moved with his family to Tucson, Arizona in 1953, where he decided not to attend high school and went to work in a supermarket. However, because his father demanded his pay check each week, he reconsidered the advantages of an education and entered high school, where he graduated in 1955. That year he joined the Army Reserves (24th Tank Battalion, 96th Infantry Division) in March, graduated high school in June, went through basic training in June (Fort Ord, California), armor summer camp (Camp Irwin, California) in August, enrolled in wildlife management at the University of Arizona in September, and shot his fi rst white-tailed deer in November. A shift in priorities came when he took a course in mammalogy in the fall of 1957 and learned to trap bats and rats and to prepare museum study skins. The next spring was spent working as a welder; however, on one outing he located a colony of bats, which stimulated an active bat banding program under E. Lendell Cockrum. The next year he went on his fi rst scientifi c collecting trip to Mexico. Spring of 1959 found him going to school by day and welding at night, so when the opportunity came to return to Mexico in June, he jumped at the
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chance. He went to Mexico several times and amassed a large number of specimens, mainly bats. He thought it was fun work (when you forget the fl eas, ticks, lice, mosquitoes, gnats, biting fl ies, bed bugs, malaria, and amoebic dysentery). Al returned to fi nish his senior year for a BS degree in 1961, followed by another year of collecting in Mexico. He started graduate school at the University of Arizona in 1963 and had his MS degree in Zoology by 1965. In 1965, he enrolled in graduate school at Louisiana State University. He spent the summers of 1966 and 1968 in an Indian village in eastern Peru, part of 1966 and 1967 in Costa Rica, and graduated with a PhD degree in zoology in August of 1970. After postdoctoral (M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, Houston, Texas) and professorship (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and Tulane University, New Orleans) positions he joined the Bird and Mammal Laboratory in the National Museum of Natural History (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) at the end of May 1973 where, except for fi eld work in Alaska, Mexico, and Central and South America, he has been ever since. Al is a member of several professional societies, an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology Patron, Sociedad Mexicana de Historia Natural Numerario, and a recipient of the Hartley H. T. Jackson Award from the American Society of Mammalogists. Al was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1977 and was very active as main fi replace cook, chairman of house and grounds, vice president, and president of the Club from 1998 to 2001.
MARSHALL CLOSSON GARDNER Marshall was born on June 11, 1918, in Logansport, Indiana. He attended George Washington University, earning a BS degree in zoology in 1943 and an MS degree in 1950. His master’s thesis was titled Taxonomic Study of the Genus Sigmodon (Rodents) of the Eastern US. He also earned a JD degree with honors there in 1955. He served as a commanding offi cer in both World War II and the Korean War. Marshall’s focus was on mammalogy, and he wrote numerous small papers on mammalian taxonomy. He was a member of Sigma Xi and the Washington Academy of the Sciences. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1949. Marshall died on April 3, 2001, in Bowie, Maryland, and has a memorial plaque installed on Plummers Island.
JAMES WILLIAMS GIDLEY On January 7, 1866, James was born to Isaac Mosier and Rebecca Penrose Gidley in Springwater, Iowa. James attended Princeton University, earning a BS degree in 1898 and an MS degree in 1901. Years later he attended George Washington University, where he earned a PhD degree in 1922. He married Florence Emily Martin on April 4, 1900. James was a vertebrate paleontologist whose fi rst professional work was with the American Museum of Natural History in New York from 1899 to 1905. After that he took a position at the National Museum of Natural History and moved to Washington, D.C., and in 1911, he became the assistant curator of fossil mammals. He conducted many expeditions to fossil sites in the United States
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while working for both of these museums. James was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1908 and his membership ended in 1917. He died on September 26, 1931.
EDWARD ALPHONSO GOLDMAN Edward was born in Mount Carmel, Illinois, on July 7, 1873. His family moved to a ranch in the San Joaquin Valley near Alila, Tulane County, California. He began collecting for the U.S. Biological Survey in 1891, and in January of the next year he traveled to Mexico as an assistant of E. W. Nelson. He and Nelson traveled to all of the states of Mexico and Guatemala over 14 years to collect birds, mammals, and reptiles. In 1910, he went farther south and surveyed the canal area of Panama, while the canal was being constructed. In 1918, he served in the Sanitary Corps of the Army during World War I in France, trying to prevent the destruction of food and other supplies by rats. When he returned to Washington, he remained associated with the Biological Survey and was in charge of biological investigations from 1919 to 1925, as well as chief of the division of game reservations from 1925 to 1928. He became a senior biologist in the Division of Wilderness Research, working there until 1940. In 1944, he was named honorary associate in zoology at the Smithsonian Institution, and offi cially retired. At the end of his life he was writing about his experiences with Nelson in Mexico. One thing particularly outstanding in Edward’s life was his important role in negotiating a treaty with Mexico to protect migrating birds and game mammals. The treaty was completed on February 7, 1936, and he was recognized by Mexicans as an authority on their fauna, who was more familiar with their biota than the Mexicans themselves. Edward was a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, the Cooper Ornithological Club, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Mammalogists (of which he was president when he died), the Biological Society of Washington of which he was president for a time, the Washington Academy of Sciences, Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C., Explorers’ Club of New York, and Baird Ornithological Club. Most of Edward’s studies focused on small mammals, particularly small rodents such as pocket mice and pocket gophers, and this was the focus of most of his writing. Two of his latest studies were on coyotes and tropical American monkeys, however. He also wrote a memorial of his early mentor, E. W. Nelson. Nelson had described a new genus of hummingbird in 1911, Goldmania, naming it in honor of Edward. Over fi fty mammals, birds, reptiles, plants, and mollusks were named for him. He was elected as a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901. He and his wife, Emma, had three sons, Luther C., Orville M., and Nelson E. Edward died on September 2, 1946, in Washington, D.C. He is remembered by friends and colleagues as modest, understanding, generous, and even-tempered.
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LUTHER CHASE GOLDMAN Luther was born in Washington, D.C., on November 2, 1909, and was fortunate in his younger years to learn nature lore from his father, Edward A. Goldman, an eminent naturalist. As a teenager in summer months, he served as camp boy on research expeditions in Arizona, trapping and preparing specimens of mammals, his early interest, and also gaining fi eld experience with the Predator and Rodent Control Branch of the Biological Survey. At the University of Maryland he earned a degree in biological sciences and lettered as a football fi rst-string lineman. Three years of fi eld work followed: in Mexico (two winters) for biological investigations of wintering waterfowl, as a member of a party in Baja California to collect mountain sheep (a new subspecies), in Florida, as assistant in Dr. Arthur H. Howell’s fauna research, and in Arizona for mammal research on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. In 1939, he married his college sweetheart, Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Mulligan. That year, too, was the beginning of his 20-year career as manager of national wildlife refuges at the new Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge in California. Luther’s intense interest in ornithology and in wildlife photography developed early as a result of living in remote areas with poor access to good fi lm developing and printing sources. He took up his own darkroom work and began documenting required narrative reports to the Washington offi ce with 8”x10” prints. His illustrations attracted immediate attention and copies of his photographs began to appear on the covers of Bureau reports and elsewhere. In 1941, he attended the fi rst In Training School on Bureau procedures and activities at Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland. He spent months on a one-man biological reconnaissance prior to establishment of the Imperial and Havasu National Wildlife Refuges on the lower Colorado River in Arizona. Development plans for the Salton Sea Refuge were put on hold due to unstable conditions of the Sea’s water table, and in 1942, Luther transferred to New Mexico to manage the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Along with normal refuge activities was an engineering project to change the course of the Pecos River for control of bank erosion. At night, only the bright lights of the far off German prisoner-of-war camp could be seen. Entering active duty in the U.S. Army in 1943, Luther served for three years as entomologist. Upon his return to civilian life he was offered three choices in wildlife refuge management. He seized the opportunity to research and develop the two new national wildlife refuges on the Texas-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley--the 45,000-acre Laguna Atascosa and the 2,000-acre Santa Ana. The next 12 years (1947-59) were fi lled with excitement and challenges. In Wild America, co-authored with Roger Tory Peterson after their 30,000-mile birding expedition around North America, James Fisher wrote of him, “Luther is one of the best fi eld men I have ever encountered.” After the aforementioned 20 years on Western
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refuges (including Army service), Luther accepted a position in the Washington Offi ce as assistant chief, Section of Wildlife Management in the Branch of Wildlife Refuges, and he, Betty, and their son, Edward, moved to College Park, Maryland. He served on many panels and teams, including Secretary Udall’s Eagle Survey Team, which resulted in new restrictions on poisoning, trapping, and aerial hunting of eagles in the U.S. Later, his abilities in wildlife photography led to his appointment as the Bureau’s chief photographer and curator of the extensive photo fi les, for which he photographed endangered species and fi eld activities. He received a certifi cate of commendation for his photography in the publication of Interior’s Birds in Our Lives. Through these years, many other biological and photographic duties included consultation on scientifi c matters and representing the Division of Wildlife Refuges at the Mountain Sheep Conference in Hermocillo, Mexico. In cooperation with the National Aeronautical Space Administration and the Atomic Energy Commission, Luther photographed wildlife on Amchitka Island, Alaska, to determine the effect of subterranean atomic bomb blasts on surface fauna and wildlife on the Kenai Peninsula. With Dr. Aldrich and artist Bob Hines, he selected and arranged the annual showing of Duck Stamp art entries for judges’ selection of the contest winner. On the U.S.-Canadian team to secure whooping crane eggs from the Northwest Territories, Canada, Luther photographed the operation from the air and on the ground and wrote an account for the Bureau publication In-Sight (40,000 copies reprinted for wide distribution). He made a second trip for team egg-pickup in 1974. With Dr. Aldrich, he made a six-year study and photographic record of the bald eagle from nestling to adult to determine its age when acquiring complete white head and tail feathers. Prior to the California condors’ disappearance in the wild, in cooperation with the National Wildlife Federation, Luther photographed them in the mountains of Sespe National Sanctuary, northeast of Los Angeles. He created slide shows concerning endangered species for use by the Regional and Washington Offi ces, as well as on loan to the general public. His photographs have hung in the U.S. Capitol, State Department, museums in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the library of Peter Scott at Slimbridge, and are widely used in publications of the federal government and National Geographic Society and in books by conservation authors. Retiring in 1974 after 35 years of government service, he has led many natural history tours. He was honored recently by both the Montgomery County Chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society and the Prince George’s County Audubon Society, highlighting the contributions he has made to them and to the cause of wildlife preservation in general. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1960 and was chairman of Books and Photographs Committee. When The Members and History of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club was revised in 1984 and the Supplement in 1993, Luther supplied the photographs, printing many from old negatives (some glass plates) and developing and printing new ones. In 1996, he was selected to become an honorary member. Luther lived with his wife Betty for many years in their home in College Park, Maryland, until her death in 2002. He continued to live alone and be very active with birding projects. Luther died on January 12, 2005, after a short illness. Luther was one of the most popular and active members of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club and attended our oyster roast on Plummers Island on October 30, 2004, just three days before his 95th birthday.
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JOHN SIMISON GOTTSCHALK John was born on September 27, 1912, in Berne, Indiana. He attended Earlham College and received a BA degree in 1934 and an LLD degree in 1966. He attended the University of Indiana and received a MA degree in 1943. John was employed as a park ranger with the Indiana Conservation Department in 1930, later becoming park naturalist and superintendent of fi sheries. During World War II, he was production laboratory director in the Schenley penicillin manufacturing plant. He began his federal career as a fi sheries biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service. He organized the Federal Aid in Fish Restoration program in 1951, and was successively chief of the Division of Sport Fisheries, regional director of the Northeast Region, and, in 1964, director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. John initiated the fi rst formal endangered species program, several innovative waterfowl management concepts, including the “point system” bag limit, and the search for lead shot substitute. During his tenure as director, Bureau scientists determined the biochemical cause of egg-shell thinning and brought about the ban on use of DDT. John left the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1970 to become assistant to director of the National Marine Fisheries Service for recreational and environmental programs. John retired from government service in 1973 and was appointed executive vice-president of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies He represented the Interior Department and the Association at numerous international meetings and served as a member of the Survival Service and Ecology Commissions of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, as a member of the International Migratory Bird Committee, the U.S. delegations on the Antarctic Conservation Treaty, the U.S./Japan Migratory Bird Treaty, and the U.S. delegation to the meetings leading to the Convention on Control of Trade in Endangered Species. In 1979, he became a legislative counsel for the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and in 1981, on retirement from active duties, became its counsel. John was vice-president of The Wildlife Society; president of the American Fisheries Society and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay; and a member of the board of directors of the National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Naturalist Society, where he also served as conservation chairman. John received the Conservation Award of the Nash Motor Company in 1955; John Pearce Award of the Northeast Wildlife Society in 1965; the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of the Interior in 1971; Seth Gordon Award of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies in 1975; the Aldo Leopold Medal of the Wildlife Society in 1976; the Paul Bartsch Medal of the Audubon Naturalist Society in 1989; and the Marcellus Hartley Dodge Award of the Great Swamp (New Jersey) Watershed Association in 1996. He was an honorary life member of the American Fisheries Society, The Wildlife Society, the Whooping Crane Conservation Association, and the Izaak Walton League of America. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1965 and served as president from 1979 to 1981. John died in 1999.
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EDWARD HARRISON GRAHAM Edward was born on November 30, 1902, at New Brighton, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pittsburgh and received a BS degree in 1927 and a PhD degree in botany in 1932. He collected plants in British Guiana in 1924 and also in the west (Arizona, Colorado, and Utah) and elsewhere. He was an assistant curator of botany at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh from 1929 until 1937. He then joined the Soil Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and advanced successively from biologist, to chief of the division of biology, and fi nally to assistant administrator. Edward was assistant administrator for International Programs when he retired in 1964 at the age of 62 after 27 years of distinguished service with U.S. Department of Agriculture. Edward was an active leader in the conservation and scientifi c community. He was a lecturer in land management ecology in the Graduate School of the United States Department of Agriculture from 1942 to 1952, at Harvard University in 1949, and a Guggenheim Fellow in 1954. He represented the United States at numerous scientifi c conferences in Mexico, Venezuela, Denmark, France, Scotland, and Greece. Edward served as president of the Soil Conservation Society of America; was a consultant to the Nature Conservancy of Great Britain; chairman of the Commission on Ecology of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources; and a member of the United States National Committee for the International Biological Program. Following his retirement from government service Edward was a consultant to the Ford Foundation and a senior associate of the Conservation Foundation in Washington. He was the author of numerous scientifi c papers and monographs. He will be long-remembered for two books: The Natural Principles of Land Use in 1944 and The Land and Wildlife in 1947. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1939. Edward died of pneumonia on May 16, 1966. At the time of his death he was chairman of the Commission on Ecology of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and had been scheduled to become president of the Union in 1966. A memorial plaque was installed on Plummers Island in tribute to his well-known ecologist.
E. C. GREEN E. C. Green was born in the 1800s. He worked as an entomologist for the Bureau of Plant Industry. E. C. was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1912. E. C. died on October 2, 1943.
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RICHARD E. GRIFFITH Dick was born on December 2, 1909, in Carthage, New York, graduated in 1929 from New York State Ranger School (renamed Wanakena Campus, New York State College of Environmental Science and Forestry) and completed high school in 1931. He received a BS degree in forest zoology in 1936. Dick was project biologist and acting site director for the Resettlement Administration (Erieville, New York) from May 1936 to June 1937. Dick was appointed junior biologist, Division of Wildlife Refuges, Bureau of Biological Survey, July 1937. He was assigned to reconnaissance of waterfowl migration stops and wintering grounds in the eastern U.S., which was a follow-up on some of Fran Uhler’s work. Dick was assigned to Refuge Division Headquarters, Washington, D.C., as staff assistant to the late J. Clark Salyer, II. He participated in the planning and implementation of wildlife management projects throughout the National Wildlife Refuge System. Dick initiated the designation of natural areas in the Refuge System and the use of fi re in managing wildlife habitat. Based on an on-site assessment, he characterized the 1946 Kenai, Alaska, wild fi re as benefi cial for wildlife. A fellow forester strongly disagreed, claimed the burned area would be sterile for many years, thus initiating a department review. However, Dick was vindicated when vegetation soon erased fi re scars, there was an abundance of browse, and the moose population rapidly increased. Dick was appointed assistant chief, Division of Wildlife Refuges, in 1956. He represented the Fish and Wildlife Service at Senate Committee hearings for Federal Agencies on the Wilderness Bill and, according to the late Howard Zahniser, then executive director of the Wilderness Society, became the fi rst Federal offi cial to endorse the legislation subsequently exacted by the Congress. Dick was appointed chief of wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northwest Region, 1958. He initiated Nene Goose Recovery Program with assistance of Dick Woodward, Director of Wildlife, Territory of Hawaii, and also initiated the Willamette Valley Refuges, Oregon, and the Grays Lake Refuge, Idaho, thereby, completing a part of Clark Salyer’s long-range plan. Dick was director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region from 1965 to 1975. He received the Award of Merit for support of Maine’s fi sh and wildlife conservation and Atlantic salmon restoration, the John Pearce Memorial Award, and the Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award (for personally establishing several National Wildlife Refuges). Dick retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June 1975. While a resident of Washington, New Hampshire from 1976 to 1994, he served as chairman of several boards. From 1994 to 1995, he was a volunteer for the Offi ce of International Studies, Southwestern Oregon Community College, Coos Bay, Oregon. He assisted in English as a second language classes and was a volunteer at Langlois, Oregon Middle School, assisting 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students with math and science. Dick was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1948 and was a non-resident member from 1976 to 2006.
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GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL George was born on September 20, 1849, in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BA degree in 1870 and a PhD degree in osteology in 1880, both from Yale University. In the summer of 1870, George was a member of the six-month O. C. Marsh expedition to the West (Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, and Utah) to collect vertebrate Pliocene and Cretaceous fossils. In 1874, after becoming an assistant in osteology at the Peabody Museum, George accepted an invitation to take Marsh’s place as naturalist on the Black Hills expedition, led by General George Armstrong Custer. In 1875, also in the capacity of naturalist, he accompanied Colonel William Ludlow’s reconnaissance of Yellowstone Park and vicinity. In 1899, he was a member of the Harriman Alaskan Expedition. During these missions, George became interested in the culture and welfare of American Indians, especially Blackfoot, Cheyenne, and Pawnee, and for many years returned to the West to expand his knowledge. His 1875 Yellowstone experience convinced him of the pending demise of many wildlife species, particularly big game, in the absence of laws regulating their taking. In 1876, George became editor of Forest and Stream magazine, rising to senior editor and publisher in 1880, positions he held until 1911. In this capacity, he promptly launched sustained campaigns against market hunting and for realistic game laws. The movement culminated in enactments of the Lacey Act of 1900 and the Migratory Bird Treaty with Great Britain in 1916. George served on the fi rst advisory board for Federal Migratory Bird Law. He supported strong regulatory control of hunting in all states, and in 1893 he initiated investigation of game poaching in Yellowstone National Park. The resulting exposé led directly to enactment by Congress of the Yellowstone Park Protection Act of 1894 (keystone of national park legislation). In the summer of 1885, George explored areas in Montana now known as Glacier National Park, and through his subsequent writings, he was largely responsible for inclusion of the “crown of the continent” in the national park system in 1910. In 1886, he founded the Audubon Society of New York, forerunner of the National Audubon Society, and served as its director for 26 years. George was a founding member of the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887, and served as its president from 1918 to 1927. In 1927, he was named honorary president for life. He was a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union, president of the National Parks Association, and a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Hispanic Society of America, and served on the advisory board of the American Game Protective Association (forerunner of the Wildlife Management Institute). He was a member of the Century, Cosmos, Rockaway, Mayfl ower Descendants, Authors, Explorers, and Narrows Island clubs, and the Society of Mammalogists, New York Academy of Sciences, and Archeological Institute of America. George was an author or coauthor of nearly 30 books, including classic ethnographic studies, such as The Cheyenne Indians, Their History and Ways of Life, seven “Jack” adventure books for boys (using the nom de plume “Yo”), such as Jack the Young Explorer, and such highly regarded sporting literature as American Duck Shooting. Yale University conferred on him an honorary LittD degree in 1921. In 1925, for his extraordinary contributions to conservation, he was presented the Theodore Roosevelt Gold Medal by President Calvin Coolidge. George, a quiet, modest man, was a model of intellectual diversity, integrity, and professional dedication. He was a real force behind the early conservation movement. He died in New York on April 11, 1938. George was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1922 and became an honorary member in 1923.
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JOHN MICHAEL HADIDIAN John was born on May 26, 1947, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He attended Boston University for a year before transferring to the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he completed an undergraduate degree in Anthropology. There he developed an interest in primatology. That fi eld he pursued as a graduate student under Clarence Ray Carpenter at The Pennsylvania State University. He began thesis work under Carpenter’s direction in 1971 at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center’s Field Station in Lawrenceville. He completed the PhD degree in primatology in 1979, taught briefl y at George Washington University, and began a postdoctoral project in 1982 with the University of the District of Columbia on a study of urban raccoon biology and ecology that was part of a multi-agency initiative to respond to an epizootic of rabies in that species. He joined the National Park Service in 1984 and served as the wildlife biologist for the National Capital Region of the National Park Service from 1984 to 1995. In 1995, just prior to the closing of the Center for Urban Ecology, he accepted a position as the director of the Urban Wildlife Protection Program at The Humane Society of the United States. John was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1992, served as chair of the house and grounds committee from 1993 to 1997, and served as secretary from 1997 to 1999.
MASON ELLSWORTH HALE, JR. Mason was born on September 23, 1928, near Winsted, Connecticut, and grew up on the family farm there, where he developed an interest in natural history. When he entered Yale University in 1946, he intended to study languages, but was told by the faculty that only graduate students could study Sanskrit and other ancient languages. Disappointed, he turned instead to biology, where his choice of botany over zoology was made more or less randomly. It brought him under the infl uence of Alexander W. Evans, with whom he began his training on lichens. Mason received a BS degree in botany (honors) from Yale and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1950. Mason continued his studies of lichens with John W. Thomson at the University of Wisconsin. His PhD dissertation was an ecological analysis of the corticolous lichens of southern Wisconsin that made use of ordination techniques being developed at that time by John Curtis and colleagues. He received the PhD degree in 1953 and taught briefl y at the University of Wichita from 1953 to 1955 and West Virginia University from 1955 to 1957 before coming to the Smithsonian Institution as an associate curator in the Department of Botany. Mason spent 33 years at the Smithsonian, two of them as departmental chair from 1968 to 1969. He oversaw a fi vefold expansion of the lichen collection, which made it the largest in the United States and probably third largest in the world; Mason personally collected approximately a third of the specimens in the collection. Mason’s collecting took him to every continent and brought to the Smithsonian over 80,000
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specimens. He was perhaps proudest of his trips to Antarctica (1980-85), where he studied the endolithic lichens of the dry valleys. These most unusual organisms live inside the porous rocks there and can be collected only by cracking rocks to expose the lichens inside. Mason published nearly 200 scholarly works, including fi ve books and numerous lengthy monographs. The Biology of Lichens (1967, 1974, 1983) introduced a generation of students to lichens; similarly, How to Know the Lichens (1969, 1979) became the standard identifi cation manual for North America. He was co-editor of The Lichens (1973) and co-author of Lichens of California (1988). Mason’s research covered all areas of lichenology. Early in his career at West Virginia University, with the physiologist V. G. Lilly, he did numerous experiments that investigated the nutritional requirements of lichen fungi. He was an early advocate of the use of chemical characters in the interpretation of evolutionary trends in lichens. He made extensive use of the scanning electron microscope, producing in over 15 years a library of microscope negatives that will prove invaluable to future researchers. His photographic studies of lichen growth in the eastern United States had application in both ecology and environmental studies. In 1961, Mason was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. He was an active participant in all Club activities, serving frequently as outdoor cook at the annual shad bake and oyster roast. He was most interested in continuing the lichen work begun on the Island by founding member William Maxon and members Emery Leonard and Ellsworth Killip. This began as survey work, but developed into an extensive biomonitoring effort involving the use of lichens as environmental indicators of air quality. The most signifi cant of these efforts began in 1959 and measured lichen growth rates photographically at permanent sites established across the Island. Done over a period of nearly 20 years, these measurements established correlations between lichen growth and various microclimatic factors, which were recorded continuously with the assistance of his son Robert. When the Capital Beltway Bridge (now the American Legion Memorial Bridge) was completed in 1965, the environment of the Island changed considerably, and Mason was able to observe marked changes in lichen responses. Later studies with Club member Jim Lawrey demonstrated signifi cant uptake of various heavy metals and other pollutant elements by lichens on the Island. Since lichens have been collected on the Island for over 100 years, analysis of collected lichens provided retrospective data about the Island’s environment in the past. In addition, measurements have been collected up until the present. Due to Mason’s efforts, the Club has an extensive set of environmental data for the Island that begins in the 1890s and continues into the present. Mason was stricken with renal cell cancer in 1989 and died at his home in Arlington, Virginia, on April 23, 1990. Although he was not technically among those members eligible to have memorial plaques mounted on the Island after death, the Club asked for and received permission from the National Park Service to place a commemorative plaque on the Island for Mason. At his family’s request, his ashes were also placed on the Island. At the memorial service on the Island dedicating Mason’s plaque, his family members noted his fondness for the Club and his excitement over his research projects conducted on the Island. Since his death, lichenologists visiting Washington from foreign countries frequently ask to see the Island where he worked and the plaque mounted there in his honor.
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RUSSELL JAMES HALL Russ was born on March 27, 1943, in Watertown, New York. He was raised in the northern New York area, where he developed an early interest in natural history. He received a BS degree from St. Bonaventure University, and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Kansas, where he studied under the renowned vertebrate ecologist Henry S. Fitch. His graduate research focused on ecology and demography of lizard populations. After nine years as assistant and associate professor of Biology at Mansfi eld State College in Pennsylvania, he moved into government service in 1977. While in Pennsylvania he conducted research on local salamander populations. As a research biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, he instituted one of the earliest programs of research investigating the effects of environmental contaminants on amphibians and reptiles. Shifting his emphasis to management, he served as assistant director and branch chief at Patuxent until 1989, when he moved to the Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters offi ces in Washington, D.C. He served for a total of eight years in headquarters offi ces as the research organization of the Fish and Wildlife Service became successively units of the National Biological Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1997, he became director of the U.S. Geological Survey Florida Caribbean Science Center in Gainesville, Florida. Russ retired in 2006. He continues his writing, some of which is based on his Patuxent experiences. Russ was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1990.
JOHN N. HAMLET John was from North Dakota and was born in 1911. Most of his professional career was spent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the Predator and Rodent Control Branch. He was trained as a parasitologist, and for a number of years his offi ce was in the Entomology Building of the University of Maryland. Eventually he left the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and ran a monkey farm in South Carolina for the Infantile Paralysis Foundation. From this farm, known as “Okatie Farms,” rhesus monkeys that came from India were quarantined prior to shipment to research facilities throughout the United States. It was at the University of Pittsburg’s Virus Reseach Laboratory where Dr. Salk developed a vaccine, tested on monkeys, that was the cure for the dreaded poliomyelitis, also known as infantile paralysis. Later he moved to Florida on another project. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1943, but terminated membership in 1967.
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CHARLES O. HANDLEY, JR Charles was born on July 14, 1924, in Longview, Texas. As a child in southern Georgia and Virginia, he envied explorers who discovered new oceans, new continents, and at least new mountains and rivers. His father, a professor of wildlife management, was a lifelong bird-watcher, so Charles grew up as a bird-watcher as well. He thought he would become an ornithologist, but in the summer between high school and college he joined an expedition from the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology, collecting mammals in the Southern Appalachians. He realized that his dream of discovering and naming new species could come true with mammals, but not with birds. He was born 200 years too late to name new birds!!! Charles received his bachelor’s degree at Virginia Tech in 1944, but had to defer graduate school while he walked from Holland to Berlin as a rifl eman in the 120th Infantry. When he returned from Europe after World War II, Alexander Wetmore, then secretary of the Smithsonian, hired him to collect birds and mammals on a naval icebreaker expedition to the Arctic. Wetmore had taken him under his wing at age nine as a promising young ornithologist, and when he went to the Smithsonian it was as a curator of birds. Charles attended graduate school in his spare time and received his master’s degree in 1947 and his PhD degree in mammalogy in 1955 at the University of Michigan. His education was interrupted by four expeditions to the High Arctic, one to Labrador, one to Guatemala, and a seven-month expedition to the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa with Harvard anthropologists studying stone-age Bushmen. From the Arctic expeditions he described new taxa of varying lemmings and Arctic hares and became a curator of mammals at the Smithsonian. With ten years of annual expeditions he inventoried the mammals of Panama. On his fi rst trip to Panama in 1957, an ornithologist friend, Karl Koford, gave him a mist net and he caught and named new species of bats after that. Ornithologists who had rigged mist nets to catch birds up to 30 meters in the forest canopy near Belém, Brazil, let him use their daytime bird nets to capture bats at night. That feat, and a paper he published in 1967 describing bats of the canopy, were not duplicated for the next 30 years. From 1965 to 1968, the Defense Department contracted Charles to conduct a monstrous inventory of mammals, their ectoparasites, and their viruses in Venezuela, collecting 40,000 specimens in the Smithsonian Venezuelan Project. Soon after this followed the ten-year (1975-85) Barro Colorado Island Bat Project. With Al Gardner and Don Wilson he recorded 35,000 marks and 15,000 recaptures, the largest database of tropical bats ever amassed. His nine expeditions from 1986 to 1993 to the little known islands of Bocas del Toro, in the Caribbean off the northwest coast of Panama, revealed them to be a hotbed of evolution. He named a new bat, sloth, armadillo, and agouti. In 1990, he met Elisabeth Kalko, a graduate student at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. She had at her disposal the world’s most sophisticated custom-made electronic equipment for recording the ultrasounds of bats. Her studies were revolutionary, but she needed his knowledge of tropical American bats, so he turned his interests to echolocation and foraging behavior of bats. They and their students had long-running studies of bat communities in Panama, Venezuela, and Brazil. Startling discoveries were commonplace, and they frequently turned up new species. He wasn’t born too late to be an explorer after all!! Along the way he published about 200 articles in scientifi c journals and a couple of books. Two wives, Iracy Oliveira in 1951, a multilingual translator from Brazil, and Darelyn Weber in 1969, a botanist from Illinois, gave Charles two daughters, Rebecca and Rachael, and two sons, Ben and Tom. He had
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six grandchildren. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1952 and was a very active member, best remembered as the preparer of roe shad and chair of the research committee. Charles died on June 9, 2000, in Springfi eld, Virginia.
WALTER O. HANSON Walt was born in a suburb of Logan, Utah, on March 13, 1913, where his father worked as a carpenter at a local lumber yard all his adult life. His father was an avid fi sherman and, as a youth, Walt accompanied him on most of his fi shing trips. His father later got him interested in hunting ducks in the sloughs and deer in the nearby Cache National Forest. After high school, he enrolled in Utah State College, pursuing a career in forestry, range, and outdoor recreation. In June 1935, Walt graduated from college and was immediately offered a job with the Forest Service in southern Utah as a landscape architect on the Powell National Forest at Panguitch, Utah. He soon was assigned to the Posey Lake Civilian Conservation Camp near Escalante. His duties included fi ghting forest fi res, laying out campgrounds, and assisting the local forest ranger with his recurrent duties. At the end of the summer he was given Civil Service status and transferred to the Black Hills of South Dakota, working at various camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps as a crew foreman, doing various kinds of conservation work. In the summer of 1936, Walt wrote to several universities seeking a scholarship in a graduate school of forestry. Louisiana State University offered him a teaching fellowship, which he promptly accepted. It paid him $50 a month while he pursued a Master of Forestry degree. He was required to teach two classes daily for the stipend. By the spring of 1937, he had completed all requirements for the MF degree, and thereafter requested reinstatement in the Forest Service. He was assigned as assistant forest ranger in the Roosevelt Forest and sent to Fort Collins, Colorado, to assist the ranger in the Buckhorn Ranger District. At the end of the summer, he was detailed to various assignments of the Forest Experiment Station at Fort Collins, then as assistant ranger on the Gunnison Forest. The big promotion came when he was made district forest ranger in the San Isabel Forest in southern Colorado, and then sent to Gunnison to become district ranger in the Pitkin District. Although exempt from military duty during World War II, Walt wanted to serve his country, so he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Camp Sutton, North Carolina, for basic training. From there he went to Aberdeen Proving Ground, where he graduated from Offi cer Candidate School. He was retained on the staff and faculty of the school. After more than a year in this assignment, he was transferred to the Pentagon to serve on the research staff of the Ordinance Department. After the war, he became active in the Army Reserves, attaining the rank of Lt. Colonel, when he eventually retired from reserve duty. While on active duty in the Army, he married Lt. Helen L. Massrock, who was a member of the Army Nurse Corps. Eventually, they had four children. After termination of active military duty, Walt returned to the Forest Service, starting with temporary fi eld assignments, while applying for graduate school at University of Michigan, leading to a PhD degree in wildlife management. His thesis was a Life History of Mountain Goats in the Black Hills. After college, he returned to the Forest Service for three years as ranger in the Bighorn Forest at Greybull, Wyoming. After this assignment, he was transferred to the Black Hills as an assistant supervisor of the Harney Forest in Custer,
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South Dakota. In 1955, he was transferred to Portland, Oregon, as wildlife staff offi cer in the Regional Offi ce. In 1962, Lloyd Swift brought him to Washington, D.C., to serve as his assistant. After Lloyd retired, Walt became the wildlife staff offi cer in the Washington Offi ce until his retirement in 1971. In 1968, Walt was elected as a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club and actively participated in all the activities on Plummers Island. He always looked forward to his cabin inspection duties and occasionally had his wife accompany him. After suffering a severe stroke in 1985, his health went downhill, and eventually he was unable to hike to the Island to do the cabin inspections. During the early years of his retirement, Walt and his wife traveled to many foreign countries, including East Africa, Russia, and China. During this same period, he purchased a dairy farm in western Pennsylvania, where he became a “gentleman farmer,” all of which came to an end at the time of his stroke in 1985. Life, with all its problems and successes, has really been good to him, which he credits to a Higher Power and to his family.
WILLIAM PERRY HAY William was born in Eureka, Illinois, on December 8, 1872. He received a BS degree from Butler University in 1891 when he was 19 years old, having entered when he was 13. He received an MS degree in 1892, also from Butler University. William taught zoology at Central High School in Washington, D.C., and became the department head of biology at Washington High School. He also taught biology and chemistry at Western, Eastern, and McKinley High Schools. William taught science courses at Howard University and lectured on zoology at Georgetown University in 1898. In 1934, after teaching for 42 years he retired to Bradenton, Florida. In Sarasota and Englewood, Florida, he did research with tropical animals for a public health project. William gave his entire animal life collection and papers to the University of Florida. He also served on the board of editors for the latest edition of the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. William was a member the Cosmos Club and was active in the Masonic circles in Kensington, Maryland. He also was an avid member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Biological Society of Washington, Washington Academy of Science, and Natural Fisheries Society. His fi rst wife, Annie McKnew, whom he married in 1902, was an art teacher for many years in the Washington, D.C., school system. They had a son in 1902 and a daughter in 1908. After his fi rst wife died in 1938, he married Mary Bailey and they had a daughter and a son. William was a founding member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900, served as president from 1901 to 1904, and became an honorary member in 1943. He died on January 26, 1947, at his home in Bradenton, Florida.
JOHN EDWARD HENCH
John was born on August 4, 1956, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He grew up in south-central Pennsylvania and developed an early interest in wildlife and the outdoors through farm work, hunting, and fi shing. He received a BA degree in biology from Shippensburg State University in 1978 and followed with a MS degree in mammalogy from the same institution in 1980. He received his PhD degree from the
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University of Maryland, College Park, in 1988, specializing in wildlife management and biometrics. John began his professional career in the spring of 1988 as an ecologist with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in Montgomery County, Maryland. His early work there focused on the development of a Natural Resources Planning and Management Program for the Montgomery County Department of Parks. The program’s objective was to balance stewardship of natural resources with the need to provide park users with a variety of high quality recreational facilities and experiences. The program was accomplished through a fi ve-part work program of inventory, planning, management, research, and education. Over the next ten years the program grew to include work in natural resources planning, wildlife management, forest management, fi sheries management, watershed restoration, pollution prevention, cartography/GIS, and education/outreach. During this period, the program’s focus changed from one that was initially park-based to one more countywide in nature. Efforts were made to integrate the program with the Park and Planning Commission’s community-based planning and park planning functions. John has published a number of research articles over the years. Topics have included: clinal variation in the eastern meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus); notes on the small mammals of various natural areas in Maryland and Pennsylvania; age classifi cation for the gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) based on eruption, replacement, and wear of molariform teeth; a method for predicting the effects of land-use changes on wildlife; and observations on hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) and wintering waterfowl in Montgomery County, Maryland. John’s professional interests lie in two areas: integrating natural resource programs with local and regional land-use planning efforts and the development of sustainable agricultural enterprises that facilitate preservation of open space and add value to new communities on the rural/urban interface. Outside of work, John’s spare time is devoted to his family, scouting, organic gardening, and the demonstration of traditional farming practices using draft horses and mules. John was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1990.
HENRY WETHERBEE HENSHAW Henry was a naturalist from the beginning of his childhood. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 3, 1850, and was the youngest of seven children. His parents encouraged his passion with nature so he was allowed to wander and explore. He developed a love of birds, and sometime between the age of 10 to 12 he shot his fi rst specimen. He entered Cambridge High School to prepare for Harvard. There he met a man named William Brewster, who shared the same interests as Henry. Brewster’s knowledge of birds was greater than Henry’s, and their friendship blossomed into a learning experience. Brewster already had begun a collection of birds and eggs, and together they perfected the preparation of study skins. Due to delicate health, Henry was unable to attend Harvard, but instead was invited to go on a voyage to the southern coast of Louisiana where he began his career as a fi eld naturalist. Henry subsequently went on many trips where he collected and learned more in the fi eld. In July of 1872, he went to Provo, Utah, as a collector for the Wheeler Expedition. His great love of birds fed his hunger to study them in new and uncharted territory. In 1879, the Wheeler’s Survey merged with the U.S. Geological Survey where Henry worked but still devoted his summers to fi eld work out West. In the fall of 1872, Henry met C. Hart Merriam and they became lifelong friends. Henry wrote Merriam many letters about his different
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fi eld expeditions, usually addressing them “My dear Merriam.” In the summer of 1874, Henry did his most notable work as a collector. He collected many unknown species of birds from Arizona and also made some valuable observations. At a later point, Henry was studying anatomy with the full intention of studying medicine, but he then questioned his decision to continue. After a not-so-successful trip to Lake Tahoe, he received an offer in 1880 from Major John Wesley Powell to work with the Bureau of American Ethnology. As an ethnologist he began his work by securing information from the Indians of the Pacifi c Coast States for the Census of 1880. Henry studied the Indians north of Mexico to prepare material classifying the families’ linguistics, with the results of this work published in 1891. In 1907 to 1910, two volumes of Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico were published by the Bureau of American Ethnology. Henry’s previous work and continued study of Indians provided the basis for these volumes. While Henry was in the West during 1883, he was one of the fi rst committee members to prepare a code of nomenclature and a checklist of North American Birds for the American Ornithologists’ Union. He served two terms as vice-president of the American Ornithologists’ Union and unfortunately had to decline the offer of president. Henry, among other men, helped organize the Cosmos Club. By 1888, Major Powell was bogged down with the Geological Survey and placed upon Henry the complicated administration of the Bureau of Ethnology, during which time he also aided in the publication of the “Anthropologist.” In December of 1894, due to failing health Henry resigned from the Bureau and moved to the Hawaiian Islands to regain his strength. There he became known as a photographer capturing many valuable images such as the native costumes, houses, and other hard to reproduce negatives. By 1905, Henry was back in Washington with the Bureau of Biological Survey and became an administrative assistant, then assistant chief, and fi nally chief when Dr. Merriam resigned. While Henry was chief of the Biological Survey, a landmark law in American conservation was passed by congress. It was called the “Federal Migration Bird Law” originating as the “Weeks-McLean Act.” He also worked with the Migratory Bird Treaty with Great Britain. His quick wit and droll sense of humor were entertaining and brought joy to colleagues. Henry became an honorary member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1905. He dedicated his life work to the environment and donated his own personal collection to museums. Henry was a true naturalist who continued to work as chief of the Biological Survey until 1916 when he retired due to declining health. He periodically helped out former associates or anyone else he could. He died on August 1, 1930; he was 81. A building at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center is named Henshaw Laboratory in honor of Henry’s role as Chief of the Biological Survey.
PATRICK STEPHEN HERENDEEN Patrick was born in 1959 and received his interest in biology growing up in the South Bend, Indiana area. He received his BS degree from California State University, Long Beach, June 1982, and his MS degree at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, in June 1985, with a thesis entitled The Alvars of the Maxton Plains, Drummond Island, Michigan: Present Community Composition and Vegetation Changes. He earned his PhD degree from Indiana University, Bloomington, in April, 1990, with a dissertation entitled Fossil History of the Leguminosae from the Eocene of Southeastern North America. Patrick was a visiting professor, Indiana University, Department of Biology, summer of 1990;
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postdoctoral research fellow, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden, 1990-91; postdoctoral research associate, Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1991 to 1993; adjunct curator, Department of Geology, The Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, March, 1993-August, 1997; research associate, The Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, 1993 to 2003; and research associate, National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., beginning in 1997. Since 1997, Patrick’s main responsibilities are working as the Robert Griggs Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, The George Washington University. He was affi liate professor, Department of Biology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, from 2000 to 2003. Patrick has received grants from National Science Foundation, George Washington University, Indiana Academy of Science, and the Michigan Nature Conservancy. Fellowships and awards include the Isabel Cookson Award, Paleobotanical Section, Botanical Society of America, August, 1990; Bayard Franklin Floyd Memorial Fellowship, Indiana University (1988-89); Floyd Fellowship, Indiana University: summers of 1986, 1987, 1988; associate instructor, Indiana University (1985-88, 1989-90); Indiana University, Department of Biology, Travel Awards (1986, 1988, 1989); Michigan State University, College of Natural Sciences, Travel Award, 1984; and teaching assistant, Michigan State University from 1983 to 1985. Patrick’s professional service includes: organizer, Midcontinent Paleobotanical Colloquium, 2001, George Washington University; Botanical Society of America representative to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2000-03; editor in chief, Systematic Botany, December 2003-06; managing editor, Systematic Botany, 1998-2003; editorial board, Journal of Plant Research, 1999-2003; and editor, Bibliography of American Paleobotany, 1996-2000. He also has been chair, Paleobotanical Section, Botanical Society of America, 1997-98; co-organizer (with Anne Bruneau and Gwilym Lewis) Symposium, Phylogenetic relationships in Caesalpinioideae, 3rd International Legume Conference, Canberra, Australia, 2001; co-organizer (with Anne Bruneau), Symposium, Phylogenetic relationships in Caesalpinioideae: evidence from multiple sources of characters, 16th International Botanical Congress, St. Louis, Missouri, August, 1999; co-organizer (with Peter R. Crane), 44th Annual Systematics Symposium, Missouri Botanical Garden, The origin of modern terrestrial ecosystems: fossils, phylogeny and biogeography October, 1997; and American Society of Plant Systematists, Systematic Collections Committee, 1996-1999. He serves as a reviewer on numerous journals and has advised numerous graduate students. Patrick is a member of many organizations including: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Botanical Society of America International Association for Plant Taxonomy, International Association of Wood Anatomists International Organization of Palaeobotany, Linnean Society of London, Sigma Xi, and Society of Systematic Biologists. Patrick was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2002 and has served as a board member.
ALBERT SPEAR HITCHCOCK Albert was born on September 4, 1865, in Owosso, Michigan, and grew up in Kansas and Nebraska. He attended Iowa State Agricultural College earning a BS degree in 1884 at the age of 19, an MS degree in 1886, and a DSc degree in 1920. He was an assistant chemist at Iowa State Agricultural College and became an instructor in 1886 at the age of 21. He was botanical assistant under Trelease at the Missouri Botanical
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Garden, St. Louis from 1889 to 1891 and then professor of botany at Kansas State Agricultural College, where he received an honorary DSc degree in 1934. He published 80 papers between 1892 and 1901, using dot distribution maps, perhaps the fi rst. In 1901, he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture and focused on economic botany, but traded jobs with Charles Piper who was the agrostologist and wanted to work on economic plants. Albert became custodian of grasses of the U.S. National Herbarium from 1905 to 1935 and principal botanist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1924. His publications on grasses were exceedingly numerous and valuable, such as the monumental Manual of Grasses of the United States (1935). He collected widely (visited every state!) and was instrumental in making the grass herbarium and library of world class stature. He played a major role in establishing the importance of types in botanical nomenclature, achieved at the 1930 Cambridge Botanical Congress. The idea of preserving a bit of the Canal Zone originated with him, resulting in Barro Colorado being made a permanent preserve. He died of a heart attack on December 16, 1935, at the age of 71, on board the Steamship City of Norfolk on his return voyage from the 1935 Amsterdam Botanical Congress and visits to European herbaria. Hubbard in 1936 said at his death “all the United States has lost one of its most distinguished botanists and the world its foremost agrostologist.” He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1914 and continued as a member until his death.
HORTON HOLCOMBE HOBBS, JR. Horton was born in Alachua County, Florida, on March 29, 1914. In 1931 he entered the University of Florida at Gainesville with the intention of studying music. Fortunately, during his freshman year he was required to study the anatomy of the crayfi sh. When Horton was assigned a specimen that was too decomposed to show its internal structures, he solved the problem by going to a local creek and catching his own specimens. One was dissected and a few remaining individuals were placed in a jar and left on his desk pending release. Serendipitously, a male and female were present. They soon mated and the female deposited eggs, which subsequently hatched. As the semester progressed, and the drama of crayfi sh life history unfolded, Horton became more and more interested, and by the end of the semester, he had decided to work on crayfi shes rather than music. Music’s loss was zoology’s gain! After earning his BS degree in 1934 at Gainesville, Horton stayed there to continue his studies, receiving his MS degree in 1936 and his PhD degree in 1940. He began teaching at the University of Florida in 1937, continuing until 1946 when he became a faculty member at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. While at the Univerity, Horton also found time to serve as director of the Mountain Lake Biological Station from 1956 until 1962. In 1962, he departed Charlottesville to become head curator of zoology at the United States National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian
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Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1964, Horton was appointed senior zoologist to ease his workload, a change required by chronic heart disease. He retired from the National Museum of Natural History in 1984, but continued on for some years as senior zoologist emeritus. Horton was always considered an excellent teacher, receiving awards at the University of Virginia and working actively with graduate students at the masters and doctoral levels. He also was an able administrator and world-class researcher. It was as a researcher that he left his greatest mark, a mark that would be very diffi cult for any scientist to match today. His fi rst project was the Florida crayfi shes, at the time thought to include only a handful of species, but by the time he published his classic treatment in 1942, Horton had increased the knowledge of the known fauna to 42 species and subspecies, 28 of which he described himself. Horton published 211 papers and abstracts, including a number of monographs and other book-length works. In these publications, which span a period of over 50 years, he established our modern system of crayfi sh systematics and made enormous advances in our knowledge of their distribution and evolution. Although the crayfi shes were his primary research topic, Horton published numerous papers on the entocytherid ostracods (largely commensals of crayfi shes), with a scattering of signifi cant papers on other decapod crustaceans (shrimps and crabs). In his six decade career Horton described 286 species, 38 genera and subgenera, and one new family. Horton was a dedicated “fi eld man” who collected extensively in surface and subterranean waters. It is doubtful that anyone knows how many specimens he personally collected, but when he came to the Smithsonian Institution in 1962 he brought with him his own collection, which included some 80,000 specimens! Horton never lost his love of music; he frequently played in his home and for many years was organist at his church. He also was an accomplished artist, and did much of the scientifi c illustration for his numerous publications. Horton somehow found time to cook and bake (he has a recipe in a published cookbook), and took many photographs. He supported and participated the activities of many professional societies, and was always available to students and researchers who needed help or had a jar of specimens in hand. Horton also was a very competent botanist. Horton passed away on March 22, 1994, after dealing with severe heart disease for over 30 years. His legacy of research is extraordinary. Horton was a southern gentleman in the truest sense. He fundamentally affected the course of research on the crayfi shes and entocytherid ostracods of North American and the world. Zoology would have lost a guiding light had that young student not put some crayfi shes in a jar at the University of Florida all those long years ago. Horton was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1963.
ERIC PAUL HOBERG Eric has been a fi eld biologist for the past several decades and has traversed the Holarctic seeking to discover the connections in this complex tapestry of life that is the biota of northern latitudes. He is a biogeographer who describes the myriad of patterns, structure, and interactions linking intricate host-parasite systems across oceans and tundra in evolutionary and ecological time. He has always been a fi eld biologist and has had extraordinary voyages on research ships, great wooden-hulled boats, and sleek dories following multitudes of seabirds across the tumultuous Bering Sea, North Pacifi c basin and Sea of Okhotsk, and into the
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Southern Ocean to Antarctica. On the open expanses of the tundra he has watched the passage of great herds of caribou and isolated bands of musk oxen, as his studies delve into biodiversity and responses of complex systems to global change. Eric was born in the city of San Francisco, on October 18, 1953, and as a native Californian has a certain appreciation of the West. He was raised in Redwood City and spent a fair amount of his youth wandering the hills along the San Andreas and adjacent coastal ranges overlooking the Pacifi c, while collecting insects, various herps, and watching birds in residence and migration. His summers were spent with his parents and brother chasing wild trout on the Pit River of northern California under sweeping forests of Ponderosa Pine in the shadow of Shasta and Lassen. Eric arrived in Alaska in 1971 to pursue biology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and found his interests in ornithology and parasitology and his passion for the north. Following a master’s degree at the University of Saskatchewan in 1979, and doctoral research at the University of Washington in 1984, he has been immersed in systematics, phylogenetics, coevolution, and historical biogeography. His career has taken him to the Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island from 1989 to 1990, and to his current position as chief curator of the U.S. National Parasite Collection of the Agriculture Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1990. With science has been satisfaction; however, there is nothing fi ner than a perfect drift of a miniscule “black francis,” and the fi rst surging leap of a heavy salmon from the blackened depths of the Myrkhylur at days end in fading sunrays near midnight. Eric was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2004.
HARRY EDWARD HODGDON Harry was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, on September 4, 1946. He grew up in the rural village of Putney, Vermont, where his parents instilled in him at an early age a great appreciation of and fascination with the outdoors through family camping, fi shing, and hunting trips, as well as endless hours of hard work on the farm. Harry attended the Putney School, a private high school where his parents worked, and refi ned his outdoor interests by conducting several natural resource inventories and projects in the school’s large nature reserve. After graduation, he entered the pre-forestry and wildlife program at the University of Vermont for two years and automatically transferred to the University of Maine for two years to complete his BS degree in wildlife biology. From Maine, Harry ventured south to the University of Massachusetts for a master’s program studying the behavior of a colony of beavers. Upon completion of his MS degree, he expanded this research and examined the dynamics and behavior of an unexploited population of beavers for his doctorate. In the spring of 1975, Harry continued his southward migration to Washington, D.C., to become the manager of conservation activities for the National Rifl e Association of America, where his primary duties were developing conservation and outdoor education programs, directing governmental affairs for natural resources, and overseeing a grant program for wildlife research. In short order he was promoted to assistant director and then director of the National Rifl e Association’s Hunting and Conservation Division. In the fall of 1977, Harry left the National Rifl e Association for The Wildlife Society, the scientifi c
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and educational association of wildlife biologists. He served as fi eld director under Washington Biologists’ Field Club member Fred G. Evenden and was responsible for wildlife conservation issues, operation of the Society’s 125 sections, chapters, and student chapters, membership activities, and college and university relations. In the spring of 1982, he was appointed the Society’s third executive director, where he was employed until 2004. He served as the chief executive offi cer responsible for executing the objectives, policies, and programs developed by the Council and for the administrative and managerial affairs of The Wildlife Society. In recognition of his dedication and achievements, The Wildlife Society Council presented Harry with an Outstanding Service Award in 1991. The Department of Forestry and Wildlife at the University of Massachusetts recognized him as Distinguished Alumnus in 1989. He serves on numerous national and international committees and advisory boards and works closely with state, provincial, and federal agencies, natural resource organizations, and universities concerned with planning, research, and management of renewable natural resources and wildlife education. He is a member of the executive committee of the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation and has served as editor of The Wildlife Society’s bimonthly newsletter, The Wildlifer, since 1982. Harry is a certifi ed wildlife biologist with professional interests in enhancing the status of wildlife professionals; wildlife education and professional development; renewable natural resource policy; furbearer management; and behavior, ecology, and population dynamics of beaver. He has authored more than 80 technical and popular articles and reports, lectured at numerous colleges and universities, and been an invited speaker at many national and international conferences. Harry was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1980, and served on the board of managers from 1981 to 1983.
RONALD WILLIAM HODGES Ron was born on August 7, 1934, and became interested in Lepidoptera at age six upon fi nding a freshly emerged luna moth in the backyard of his Michigan home. He stated his intent to update Holland’s “Moth Book” as a ninth grader. He received his BS degree in 1956 and his MS degree in 1957 from Michigan State University, where he was strongly infl uenced by Roland Fischer. He went to Cornell University to work with John Franclemont. During this period he did extensive fi eld work in New York, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Ecuador. He became deeply interested in the microlepidoptera, particularly the Gelechioidea, and was awarded a PhD degree in 1961. He received a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and commenced to work on genera of Gelechiidae. This project was interrupted when he accepted a position with the Systematic Entomology Laboratory at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service located in the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. He had several roles in the Laboratory, including laboratory chief. He stepped down from this
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position to continue fi eld and laboratory research on gelechioid moths. He retired in January 1997 and moved to Eugene, Oregon. He became involved with The Moths of America North of Mexico project in its preliminary stages in 1969. This project will for the fi rst time present a taxonomic/systematic survey of the estimated 16,000+ species of moths that occur in America north of Mexico. It is projected to require 130 volumes. Since then, he has written volumes on Oecophoridae, Cosmopterigidae, and Gelechiidae, Dichomeridinae and Gelechiinae, and the genus Chionodes which collectively treat 709 species, including 217 that were new to science. He was responsible for the Check List of the Lepidoptera of America North of Mexico that appeared in 1983. He was managing director of the Wedge Entomological Research Foundation that publishes the series and was editor-in-chief of the publications. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association for Zoological Nomenclature (president 1993-95), American Entomological Society, Entomological Society of America, Entomological Society of Canada, Entomological Society of Ontario, Entomological Society of Washington (honorary member, 1999), Michigan Entomological Society, the Lepidoptera Research Foundation, the Lepidopterists’ Society (president 1975-76), Maryland Entomological Society (president 1973-74), Ohio Lepidopterists, Northwest Lepidoptera Society, Sigma Xi, and Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica. He received the Thomas Say Award from the Entomological Society of America for his editorial oversight of Moths of North America in 1990, the Karl Jordan Medal from the Lepidopterists’ Society for research on gelechioid moths in 1997, and he was elected an honorary member of the Entomological Society of Washington in 1999. Ron was active until retirement in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club since being elected in 1963. He was president from 1976 to 1979 and participated on various committees and work and fi eld days. He was for many years the lead cook in the kitchen. Ron and his wife Elaine retired near Eugene, Oregon, where he has continued to work on moths (an illustrated, annotated key to genera of North American Gelechiidae) and to edit and publish The Moths of America North of Mexico. Gardening with a highly diverse array of plants and developing and maintaining a collection of mainly pleurothallidine orchids also have interested him in retirement.
NED HOLLISTER Ned was born on November 26, 1876, in Delavan, Wisconsin, to Kinner Newcomb and Frances Margaret Hollister. He attended Delavan High School. At age 12 he became interested in birds while under the infl uence of Ludwig Kumlien, who was a professor at Milton College. He published his fi rst papers on ornithology at the young age of sixteen. At 18 he was elected to the American Ornithologists Union. In 1901, Ned made his fi rst trip to Washington, D.C., and met some of the people with whom he would later work. The fi rst of six fi eld excursions that he took as part of government service occurred when he worked with Vernon Bailey in Texas in the summer of 1902. In 1903 he visited Alaska, and in 1904, he earned a permanent position with the Biological Survey. He traveled and collected in Utah, Nevada, Oregon, California, Arizona, and New Mexico in 1905. In 1909, he went back to California, and in 1911 he was the leader of a group working in the Canadian Rockies for the U.S. National Museum. Ned Hollister was appointed to be assistant curator of mammals at the U.S. National Museum in 1910. While working for the Smithsonian
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in 1912, Ned visited the Altai Mountains in Siberia and Mongolia with Dr. Theodore Lyman. Then in 1916, he was appointed to be superintendent of the National Zoological Park, where he continued to work until he died. He was especially outstanding in his work as museum curator, and often took time to study the collections and write about them. Publications he wrote or edited include East African Mammals, Journal of Mammalogy, Birds of Wisconsin, many papers in The Auk, and North American Ducks and Geese. Along with belonging to the American Ornithologists’ Union, he was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, honorary member of the Sociedad Estudios Biologicos of Mexico, vice-president of the Baird Ornithological Club, president in 1921 of the Biological Society of Washington, and a member of the American Society of Mammalogists and the Washington Academy of Sciences. Ned was remembered as quiet, modest, easily making friends, a keen observer, and a very systematic worker. He died in Washington, D.C., on November 3, 1924. Ned was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1908.
ERNEST G. HOLT Ernest was born in 1889 and worked for many years as an ornithologist for the Soil Conservation Service. He authored publications between 1924 and 1970 that dealt with soil and wildlife relationships, several bird species, and mammals. Ernest published in The Auk with a Montgomery, Alabama, address in 1924, and in 1933 his address was the National Association of Audubon Societies, New York City. He was president of The Wildlife Society in 1936. In 1936, Ernest was vice president of the Society of Wildlife Specialists, which was the predecessor of The Wildlife Society. Ernest was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1937 and was active until his death in 1983.
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LAWRENCE GRANT HOOVER Lawrence was born in 1885. He came to the Washington, D.C., area from Grafton, West Virginia, with his wife and a daughter, Muriel Nicholson Hoover. Lawrence was a biology teacher at Central High School and later principal of that school. His daughter, Muriel, graduated from Central High School while her father was principal. She went on to become a teacher in Montgomery County and Washington, D.C., public schools. She retired from Robert E. Peary School in the mid-1970s and died on June 9, 2001, at the age of 89. Lawrence was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1927 and terminated membership in 1943. Lawrence died in 1955.
WILLIAM DUANE HOPE
Duane was born on June 7, 1935, in Fort Collins, Colorado. He attended school in Fort Collins through the 11th grade, and at the end of his junior year moved with his parents to Estes Park, Colorado, where he completed his senior year. He returned to Fort Collins to attend Colorado State University, where he graduated with BS and MS degrees in zoology in 1957 and 1959, respectively. His PhD degree was obtained in 1964 from the Department of Nematology at the University of California, Davis, where his dissertation research was concerned with the comparative ultrastructure and systematics of marine nematodes of the family Leptosomatidae. Upon completing his graduate work, Duane was hired by the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to continue research in marine nematology. His fi rst year of employment with the Smithsonian was spent at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where he collected at numerous type localities and gathered data on seasonal changes in sub-tidal nematode populations. In 1967, Duane accepted an invitation to spend six months on a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto, where he continued research on the ultrastructure of marine nematodes. In the intervening years he has focused mostly on the systematics and ultrastructure of marine nematodes from the deep-sea and from the coasts of North America. Additional fi eld work has been done in the Suez Canal, the Bay of Bengal, and the Galapagos Islands. Duane served as chairman of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Museum from February 1975 through December 1980. He also has served as chairman of the International Association of
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Meiobenthologists and editor of the Association’s Newsletter, Psammonalia (January 1975 - December 1976); secretary of the Biological Society of Washington (1975-77); and president of the American Association of Zoological Nomenclature (May 1990 - May 1991). In addition to membership in these organizations, he is a member of the American Microscopical Society, Helminthological Society of Washington, Society of Nematologists, Society of Systematic Biology, and Sigma Xi. Duane was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1977, suspended membership in 1980, and rejoined in 2005.
ANDREW DELMAR HOPKINS Andrew was born on August 20, 1857, in Jackson County, West Virginia, the son of Andrew Evans and Miriam Florence Hopkins. He received his early education in Jackson, West Virginia. In 1893, he received an honorary PhD degree from West Virginia University. On November 18, 1880 he married Adealia S. Butcher of Wood County, West Virginia. They had four children: Roy Samuel, Edwin Butcher, Louise, and Herbert Evans. Andrew was a bioclimatist, but starting in 1890 he worked as an entomologist at the West Virginia Agriculture Experimental Station and became its director in 1897. During this period he also taught entomology at West Virginia University from 1896 to 1902. On July 1, 1902, he was appointed to be the forest entomologist in charge of forest insect investigations working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Division of Entomology. He was promoted to senior entomologist in 1904. In 1923, he began working in bioclimatics as a specialized researcher, and became collaborator in charge of bioclimatics in 1931. During his lifetime, he was a member of many scientifi c organizations and held leadership positions in many of them. He was a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, having become a member in 1893, and an emeritus member in 1938, a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, a member of the Association of Economic Entomologists (vice-president in 1900 and president in 1902), fi rst president of the West Virginia Academy of Sciences, president of the Entomological Society of Washington, president in 1920 of the Biological Society of Washington, vice president of the Washington Academy of the Sciences, life member of the American Meteorological Society, honorary member of the Society of Economic Biologists of England, and member of the Cosmos Club. His writings focused on forest tree insects and Scolytidae, as well as bioclimatics. His work in bioclimatics included development of the bioclimatic law and science of bioclimatics. Andrew was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1904 and ended his membership in 1912. Andrew died in 1946.
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NEIL HOTCHKISS Neil was born on June 14, 1901, in Rose Hill, New York. He attended Syracuse University and received an AB degree with Phi Beta Kappa in 1922 and an AM degree in 1924. He joined the Bureau of Plant Industry as a junior botanist in 1924 and went plant collecting in Newfoundland in 1925, returning to become a graduate assistant at Cornell University in 1925 to 1926. He became a Museum Assistant in botany at the New York State Museum from 1926 to 1927 and an instructor in botany at University of Minnesota from 1927 to 1928. He returned to Washington as assistant biologist in the U.S. Biological Survey starting in 1929 and later a botanist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, specializing in marsh ecology and retiring in 1971. During his tenure at Patuxent he developed guides for identifi cation of wetland plants, which were later reprinted by Dover Publications. He died on September 12, 1994, in Camden, Maine. Neil was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1935. He served as secretary from 1944 to 1950, president from 1951 to 1954, and terminated his membership in 1964.
ALFRED BRAZIER HOWELL Alfred was the son of Darius Carpenter and Katerine Elinor Howell. He was born in Catonsville, Maryland, on July 28, 1886. In 1908, he studied at the Sheffi eld Science School at Yale. On April 14, 1914, he married Margaret Gray Sherk. They raised four children: Elinor Gray, Margaret Travers, John Brazier, and Jane. Alfred specialized in anatomy and began his career working on special investigations in geographic variation and comparative anatomy of mammals. He spent time with the U.S. Biological Survey in 1908 and worked as a scientifi c assistant there from 1923 to 1927. In 1926, he became a collaborator with the U.S. National Museum. Johns Hopkins Medical School hired him from 1928 to 1932 to lecture on comparative anatomy, and in 1932 he became an associate professor of anatomy, staying there until 1943. Organizations to which Alfred belonged to and held positions within include: the American Ornithologists’ Union; the Cooper Ornithologists’ Club, of which he was secretary in 1913, trustee in 1920, and vice president in 1921; the American Society of Mammalogists, of which he was corresponding secretary from 1925 to 1931, editor from 1936 to 1938, vice president from 1938 to 1942, and president from 1942 to 1944; the American Association of Anatomists, the Council for Conservation of Whales of which he was executive secretary; the American Academy for the Advancement of Science as a fellow; International Offi ce for Protection of Nature, of which he was a corresponding member; and the Saint Elmo club. Alfred wrote four books and about 180 published contributions about mammals, birds, and anatomy. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1925 and terminated his membership in 1935. Alfred died on December 23, 1961.
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JUDD ALAN HOWELL Judd was born on July 10, 1948, as the second son of Lois Loretta Davidson and Morton Smith Howell at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, New York. As a young boy, Judd roamed the hills in dairy country of western New Jersey above the little village of Broadway, where his father and grandfather ran the corner grocery and post offi ce. After his father’s untimely death, the Howells, Lois, Andy, and Judd, moved to the suburbs of New York City where Lois completed her BA and MA degrees to teach high school English and psychology. During these years Judd had a strong interest in animals and spent untold Saturdays at the American Museum of Natural History pretending to be in the dioramas of the Great Hall of Mammals. During the summer of 1959, Judd and Andy accompanied their great aunt and uncle on a fl oat trip of the San Juan River in southern Utah from Mexican Hat to the Glen Canyon. The trip lasted six days but transfi xed a boy with images of the Monument Valley, the untamed Colorado River, and the fi rst footings of Glen Canyon Dam. That summer included visits to the National Parks of the Rocky Mountain west, from Mesa Verde to Yellowstone. It also included a new love interest for Mom. He was a cowboy named Bill Corsant, born in the Big Horn Valley, Montana. By the next year the family moved to Montana where Bill revitalized the old family ranch at the confl uence of the Big Horn and Little Big Horn Rivers. With the backdrop of the Little Big Horn National Battle Field, Judd’s high school years were spent among the farm families of the valley and the Crow and Cheyenne people. Not a serious academic after high school, Judd dabbled in college and was twice asked to leave because of moribund interest. As the Vietnam War raged, and with Judd’s forced break from academics, he joined the U.S. Coast Guard in 1969 and served aboard the icebreaker, Northwind, which sailed from Seattle, Washington, to Kodiak, Alaska. During that summer the Northwind conducted oceanographic research in the Bearing Sea, then sailed the Northwest Passage from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Thule, Greenland. After Greenland, Judd was assigned to Electronics School at Governor’s Island, New York, where he completed basic and long-range aid to navigation electronics training. Judd was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard in 1971 after surgery for a knee injury sustained in Greenland. Never one to give up the good fi ght, Judd returned to Montana State University, worked his way off probation and received a bachelor of science degree in zoology in 1974. After a summer studying elk in the Spanish Peaks Wilderness Area in Montana, Judd moved to Tempe, Arizona, and completed a master of science degree in zoology from Arizona State University in 1976. His work there was on systems analysis and modeling of cactus mouse population dynamics in mesquite communities of the lower Colorado River. From here, Judd began his career with the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1976, as a seasonal employee at the Bitterlake National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. He followed that with a summer assignment with the Bureau of Land Management in Lewistown, Montana, in 1977. His permanent career began in 1978 with the Bureau of Reclamation where he conducted surveys for bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and black-footed ferrets along 600 miles of the North Platte River in Wyoming. He transferred to the National Park Service in 1980 as Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s fi rst natural resources specialist. During his 20-year tenure at Golden Gate, he documented the fi rst nesting of Heermann’s gulls in the United States on Alcatraz Island and was founder of the banding program in 1983, which was the foundation for the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. While in California, Judd completed his PhD degree in wildland resource science with an emphasis
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in wildlife ecology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993. Judd conducted inventories and monitoring of terrestrial mammals for the National Park Service from 1990 to 1997. In 1992, he began a comparative biodiversity study between coastal California and coastal France, with colleagues from the University of Brittany, Brest, where they worked on the Island of Ouessant. From 1994 to 2000, Judd studied the population dynamics and habitat use of tule elk at Point Reyes National Seashore. In 1993, Judd was transferred to the National Biological Service as station leader and research biologist for the Golden Gate Field Station. He became a U.S. Geological Survey research biologist in 1996, when the National Biological Service became part of the U.S. Geological Survey, and a Research Manager in 1999 at the U.S. Geological Survey-Western Ecological Research Center in Sacramento, California. In 2002, by some miracle of fate, Judd was selected to be the seventh Center Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, where he believes he has died and gone to heaven. Judd is the author or co-author of numerous professional papers and reports focusing on animal behavior and habitat. He has been a fi eld associate for the California Academy of Sciences; was an affi liate associate professor in the Wildlife and Fisheries Department of the University of Idaho; and is currently an adjunct professor in the Wildlife Department of Humboldt State University. Judd lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, Nancy. They are the parents of three wonderful daughters, who live in California. When he is not “working,” he is a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, the Fleet Reserve Club, and a Fellow of the Explorers’ Club. Judd was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2004.
PHILIP STRONG HUMPHREY Philip was born on February 26, 1926, in Hibbing, Minnesota. From 1944 to 1947 he served in the U.S. Air Force. He attended Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, earning his BA cum laude in biology in 1949. He received his MS degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1952 and his PhD degree in 1955 with a dissertation entitled The Tribe Mergini. In June of 1955, Philip began working as a research associate at the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan. Two years later he moved to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, to be assistant curator of ornithology and assistant professor of zoology. While at Yale University, he received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, which lasted from 1960 to 1961. He stayed at Yale until 1962, when he became curator of the Division of Birds of the Department of Zoology of the U.S. National Museum. In 1965, he was promoted to chairman of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at this museum. He went on to the University of Kansas in 1967, to become chairman of the Department of Zoology there until 1969, and continuing from 1967 as director of the Museum of Natural History. Philip’s key interest areas are ornithology and museum management, and he combines research, administration, and teaching. In particular, he is interested in systematics and the ecology of Fuego-Patagonian birds. He wrote about 20 papers on these birds, as well as about 20 on waterfowl and fi ve on molts and plumages. He considered conservation accomplished through service on boards, such as the World Wildlife Fund-U.S., to be an important part of his life. He became a trustee on this board in 1978, as well as being on the long range planning committee, the executive committee, and as chairman of the program committee.
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Philip also belonged to and served in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Ornithologists Union, the Association of Systematics Collections of which he was secretary from 1972 to 1976, Cooper Ornithological Society, International Council for Bird Preservation Pan American Section, the Kansas Museum Association, the Kansas Ornithological Society, the National Audubon Society, Sigma Xi, the Society of Systematic Zoology, and the Wilson Ornithological Society. He also was involved with the Douglas County Historical Society, the Elizabeth M. Watkins Community Museum Board of Trustees, Acquisitions Committee, and Executive Committee, and the Rotary Club, as well as many committees and boards related to the University of Kansas. Philip studied in various Central and South American countries throughout his life, including Haiti, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Chile. Philip was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1963 and now is a non-resident member living in Lawrence, Kansas.
PAUL DAVID HURD, JR. Paul was born on April 2, 1921, in Chicago, Illinois, to Paul David Hurd and Ruth Dorothea Bick. He grew up in a small home in the Mojave Desert in California. He attended Colton High School in Colton, California, and then Newport Harbor Union High School in Newport Beach, California. With the guidance and interest of one of his teachers, he became very interested in science and began to collect insects and plants and study birds. He met the mother of well-known entomologist Charles D. Michener, Josephine R. Michener, at meetings of the Western Bird-banding Association. She had a great infl uence on him and encouraged him to continue studying nature and biology. He published his fi rst paper in 1941 in Audubon Magazine, on a bird census of Newport Upper Bay. He entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1940, but he had to take leave from his studies from 1942 to 1946 to serve as chief pharmacist’s mate in the U.S. Navy. He was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He returned to the University of California at Berkeley to earn a BS degree, an MS degree in 1948, and a PhD degree in 1950. During this time he held several teaching and research assistantships. In 1950, he was promoted to the position of senior museum entomologist. During the summers of 1952 and 1953 he worked under Frank A. Pitelka on a biological expedition in Barrow, Alaska. He had an unusual experience due to the use of an aspirator to do much of his sampling. He became sick after returning from the trip and it was discovered that he had living Coleoptera, Collembola, Diptera, and Hymenoptera in his sinus. Paul was appointed to be junior entomologist in the California Agricultural Experiment Station, in charge of a Berkeley project titled The California Insect Survey. He also was promoted to various other research and teaching positions to become a professor of entomology and entomologist of the experiment station in 1965. In 1956, he made several trips to Chiapas, Mexico, to help with a study of fossiliferous amber. At Berkeley Paul taught a wide variety of classes, with a particular affi nity for fi eld classes and fi eld trips. He also worked with graduate students and was the supervisor of six successful PhD students. Another important aspect of his work at the school was serving as chair of the chancellor’s advisory committee on landscape planning. He took a sabbatical from 1959 to 1960 and went to Curitiba, Brazil, working with Padre J. S. Moure. Other travel projects took him to various parts of Mexico and Central and South America, often with funding by the National Science Foundation. Paul took leave from Berkeley for two years from 1967 to 1969 to work as associate program director of
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systematic biology within the Division of Biological and Medical Sciences of the National Science Foundation. He is remembered as having adjusted very easily and was almost immediately accepted by the staff. After one year back in Berkeley he left to serve as curator of Apoidea in the Department of Entomology of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. In July 1971, he started a fi ve-year term as chairman of the Department of Entomology. He continued to work vigorously to make administration effective and the department effi cient, and to do as much research as possible. He introduced an insect zoo to the Museum, which Terry Erwin developed into a permanent display. Later, in 1978, the Smithsonian honored him by promoting him to supergrade status in the Federal Civil Service, only the third entomologist on staff to receive this promotion, and in 1980, he was appointed to be a senior scientist, of which there are only fi ve in the Museum. Serving an important role in many organizations, he was editor of the Pan-Pacifi c Entolomologist for the Pacifi c Coast Entomological Society, was on the governing board and chaired the advisory committee for systematics resources in entomology, was president of the Association for Tropical Biology from 1969 to 1970, and received the Congressional Medal for his work as co-chairman of the program committee for the First International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology. He also belonged to Sigma Xi, the Friday Morning Cheese Group of the Cosmos Club, as well as being a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the California Academy of Sciences. He also served as Hymenoptera Section editor for Biological Abstracts. Paul’s early research interests focused on wasps; his doctorate was on the California species of Pepsis. Gradually his main focus became bees, however. He published 14 papers on California carpenter bees, and collaborated with Padre Moure to write A Classifi cation of the Large Carpenter Bees in 1963. He also was particularly interested in the interactions of bees and fl owers, doing a study on squash and gourd bees with support from the National Science Foundation. Other fl ower/pollinator projects involved the creosote bush and sunfl owers. He became a pioneer in using computers to store and organize biological data when working with Karl Krombein, B. D. Burks, and later D. R. Smith to create a computerized synoptic catalog of Hymenoptera in the United States and Canada. This catalog received much praise. He then set out to create a series of annotated catalogs on New World bees, but unfortunately only got through two before his death. Paul died on March 12, 1982, of a heart attack within the Museum of Natural History. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1971.
HARTLEY HARRAD THOMPSON JACKSON Hartley was born on May 19, 1881, in Milton, Wisconsin, to English parents, Harrad and Mary Thompson Jackson. His interest in natural history developed at an early age, and he started a collection of birds at age 11. By the time he was 14, his interest began to focus on mammals, which remained his primary interest throughout the rest of his life. His fi rst publication, which was on screech owls, appeared in Nidologist in 1897, when he was 16. His fi rst mammal paper, which dealt with the meadow voles of Wisconsin, appeared in 1903 in the Milton College Review. Hartley received his BS degree from Milton College in 1904 with majors in zoology and chemistry. While a student he played quarterback on the football team. After graduation he taught in the Science Department of Carthage Collegiate Institute in Missouri. Two other science teaching jobs followed in short order at Juda, Wisconsin, and Waukegan, Illinois. He entered the University of Wisconsin in
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1908 for graduate studies and obtained his MA degree in 1909. While there he identifi ed and catalogued the Department of Zoology bird collection. He later donated his own mammal collection to that institution. On February 16, 1910, he joined the research staff of the Bureau of Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, in Washington, D.C., where he was put in charge of its mammal collection. During the early years of his government employment, he continued his work toward a PhD degree in zoology, which he received from George Washington University in 1914. Hartley continued regular fi eld work in Wisconsin until 1922, and the results appeared as a well-illustrated book, The Mammals of Wisconsin, in 1951. In the introduction he defended the Life Zone concept of C. Hart Merriam and his other Biological Survey associates against the then current trend of criticism by ecologists. He used that concept as a basis for organizing plant and animal distribution in Wisconsin in three life zones. Hartley wrote two issues of North American Fauna--no. 38 in 1915, A review of the American Moles, and no. 51 in 1928, A taxonomic review of the American Long-tailed Shrews. The latter probably was his most important mammalogical paper because, with minor modifi cations, the classifi cation that he proposed is still in use today. After a series of research supervisory positions beginning in 1924, he was made chief of a new unit in the Division of Wildlife Research, which in 1936 became known as the Section of Wildlife Surveys. Research in that unit included life history, taxonomic, distributional, and ecological studies of wildlife, game management planning surveys, cooperative wildlife research in land grant colleges, investigation of wildlife resources in Alaska, and research on National Forest wildlife. Next to the American Society of Mammalogists, for which he felt a paternal interest as chairman of the founding committee, Hartley probably enjoyed most his affi liation with the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. He was elected to membership in 1925, and served as president from 1945 to 1948. Hartley also was president of the Biological Society of Washington from 1931 to 1933. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Ornithologists’ Union, Cooper Ornithological Society, Ecological Society of America, Washington Academy of Sciences, and several scientifi c societies in Wisconsin. Hartley retired in 1951, after 41 years of government service, and died at the age of 95 in September of 1976 at his retirement home in Durham, North Carolina.
LAURENCE R. JAHN Larry was born on June 24, 1926, on a dairy farm near Jefferson, Wisconsin. Interests in nature were honed by his parents who, among other outdoor activities, gardened, fi shed, hunted, and protected two large groves of shagbark hickory trees and marketed the nutmeats yearly. Building home-made rafts from tree limbs to fl oat reaches of the Rock River near the farm further stimulated his interests in and appreciation of the outdoors. Upon completion of World War II Navy service, Larry attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned a BS degree in zoology in 1949, an MS degree in 1958, and a PhD degree in 1965, the latter two in wildlife ecology. As an aquatic biologist from 1949 to 1959 with the Wisconsin Conservation Department, he had statewide responsibilities for migratory waterfowl and aquatic habitats. Population and habitat surveys and studies led to the establishment of a system of management areas in Wisconsin to accommodate migrant Canada geese, enhance production of resident waterfowl, and improve management of the geese that congregated at Horicon Marsh.
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Larry joined the Wildlife Management Institute as its North Central fi eld representative in 1959, moved to Washington, D.C., in 1970, and retired as president and board chairman in 1991. His persistent conservation efforts contributed to establishing new wetland, fl ood plain, shore land, stream, and watershed management policies in the 1960s to the 1980s, and integrating stronger conservation provisions in several agriculture acts, but especially in 1985. Larry worked closely with many individuals from a variety of agencies and organizations to improve the administration, planning, research, and management of land, water, fi sh, wildlife, and related natural resources. Larry provided services to a broad spectrum of boards and advisory committees of state, national, and international organizations, including federal, provincial, and state natural resource agencies. He was chairman from 1972 to 1988 of the annual North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, and responsible for planning and staging this conference, held in different principal cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and customarily attended by 1,200 or more resource researchers, managers, administrators, educators, and graduate students. He authored numerous papers and reports, and assisted in editing and publishing a number of award-winning books on wildlife ecology and management. His contributions to advancing integrated management of natural resources have been recognized by professional, educational, and private organizations, as well as federal, provincial, and state governments. He received the wildlife profession’s highest honor in 1989, when he was awarded the Aldo Leopold Medal by The Wildlife Society. In 1991, he received the Barbara Swain Award of Honor from the Natural Resources Council of America. Larry was a certifi ed wildlife biologist and dedicated conservationist continuing to reside in Vienna, Virginia, after retirement in 1991. He remained active in conservation affairs through his own consulting services on natural resources management. Activities in the 1990s included serving as a member (1992-96) and chairman (1993-94) of Virginia’s Board of Game and Inland Fisheries, and liaison offi cer (1992) for the National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1977 and served on several committees. Larry was an outdoorsman who enjoyed hiking, fi shing, hunting, photographing, and “reading” the landscape when afi eld. He believed fi rmly that well-designed, responsible, sustainable management of the resource base is essential to guide human activities, avoid substantial mitigation and restoration costs, and perpetuate responsible uses of plants and animals for current and future generations. Larry died in August 2000.
HELEN FRANCES JAMES Helen was born on May 22, 1956, in a U.S.Army hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a young girl, she lived on a farm at the foot of Kessler Mountain in the Arkansas Ozarks, near the town of Fayetteville. When she was eight years old, her family moved up the mountain to a custom-built house in the woods. She and her sisters had free range of the surrounding eastern deciduous forest, old fi elds, streams, and aging farm buildings, and made the most of it. As ecologists, Helen’s parents had a special interest in birds, and they fostered a passion for nature in their girls. Family trips involved camping, canoeing, and hiking in the Ozarks, with extralimital excursions to the American southwest and Mexico. The Amerindian artifacts that Helen found on some of these trips captured her youthful imagination, leading her to join the Northwest Arkansas Archaeological Association at age twelve. Two years later, to her great joy, her father accepted a one year Fulbright Fellowship assignment to Cape Coast, Ghana, and Helen experienced human cultures and natural communities very different from those of the Ozarks. Life back in Arkansas seemed a bit dull in comparison, so at age sixteen Helen left high school to become a freshman at the University of Arkansas. There she was ably mentored by Mike Hoffman and others in the Anthropology Department, who remembered her from Archaeological Association excursions. In 1977,
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she graduated with training in archaeology and biological anthropology, but with her real interests drifting inexorably toward vertebrate zoology and paleontology. Helen had ties with the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, having begun as a summer volunteer in the Paleobiology Department two years previously. She also had conducted senior honors research on Amerindian skeletons in the Physical Anthropology section, and worked as an assistant to Richard Zusi on his research on the anatomy and systematics of hummingbirds. She returned to the latter job after graduation, but Richard’s grant soon ran out, and she fatefully accepted a position helping Storrs Olson identify some fossil birds from the Hawaiian Islands. This project blossomed into a long-term research program when collections that Storrs and Helen made in the islands revealed a bounty of undescribed fossil birds. Documenting these extinct species and placing them in an evolutionary and ecological context became a life goal for the couple, who were married in 1981. The switch to research on fossil birds enabled Helen to happily abandon her early anthropomorphism, while still applying her archaeological training at paleontological excavations, and her experience with human skeletal variation when delineating species limits in fossil birds. Archaeological training also had taught her to like multidisciplinary approaches, leading her to foster research collaborations that brought new sources of data to the program. These include an early entry into carbon dating of bone collagen using accelerator mass spectrometry, amplifi cation of ancient DNA from subfossil bones to study the evolutionary relationships and population genetic history of extinct and endangered species, and joint excavations with paleobotanists and archaeologists to develop an integrated picture of ecological change through time. Helen earned a PhD degree in zoology from Oxford University in 2000, with a dissertation on the comparative osteology and phylogeny of the Hawaiian fi nches (Drepanidini). Her research interests beyond the Hawaiian Islands include fossil vertebrates and paleoecology of Madagascar, comparative osteology and phylogenetics of perching birds, and the evolution of island waterfowl. Helen has authored or co-authored over forty publications in science. She currently serves on the executive council of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution and on the council of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. When not in the museum, she is kept busy by her two children, Travis and Sydney. The family loves to escape to their summer cottage on the Cacapon River in West Virginia, a setting very like her girlhood home. Helen was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2001.
JOSEPH REIHER JEHL, JR. Joe was born on an island (well, Manhattan) on December 12, 1935, and grew up in Clifton, New Jersey, then a truck-farming/manufacturing city 16 miles west of New York City. His father, a physician, encouraged his early interest in natural history, which developed in his teen years under the infl uence of a high school biology teacher, who introduced him to birding, and a truck driver, who honed his skills and introduced him to the state’s beaches, ridges, back roads, and garbage dumps (that’s where the gulls were). These interests distracted him from most of what was being taught in high school, although in an aptitude test he correctly identifi ed the photos of 75 bird species and nearly as many mammals. The counselor said he might make it as a museum curator. He attended Cornell University, with the idea of majoring in zoology and probably going to medical
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school. However, he found no stimulation in zoology, which was taught as a foreign language, with a major emphasis on remembering the names of parts of cells seen through a microscope, or the appendages of a crayfi sh, but little on the big picture of how animals work or evolution. To fi ll in a requirement, he took a course in geology and changed his major. Geology provided some of the framework he sought, as well as an appreciation of time, faunal changes, and impermanence. However, he was naive. At a seminar in 1956 he asked why we were not discussing Wegener’s ideas of continental drift. His query was greeted with derision, as the faculty had declared it impossible. But, for him, geology was also a blind alley. The only jobs available were working for oil companies, identifying bits of index fossil foraminifera drilled up from wells. Full circle: looking at tiny animals through microscopes was what drove him out of zoology, so he enrolled at New York University and took a few courses that seemed interesting. Comparative anatomy was the clincher, for it fi nally provided a key to evolution you could understand. Curiously, at the same time, Tuzo Wilson was showing that continental drift (afterward known as plate tectonics) was real. This concept was as important to geology as natural selection was to biology, because it provided glue for integrating lots of facts that the geology professors had left unconnected. Only then did it become possible to understand why commercially important minerals were found in some areas and not others, or to consider the distribution of fossils (or even modern birds) in relation to the position of past continents. With this insight, Joe was ready to move on. Uncle Sam agreed and awarded him two years, 3 months, and 4 days at Fort Detrick, Maryland. This allowed him time to learn about strange phases of biology (that we don’t talk about), as well as to read. More good luck; he met Jeanne Duncan, a student at Hood College. Married for 43 years, they have three children, all above average. After military service, Joe enrolled at the University of Michigan, and in 1964 began studies of subarctic birds. These studies, which are still continuing, resulted in two books on the avifauna of Churchill, Manitoba (1970, 2004). He received his PhD degree in 1967 for a thesis on the systematic relationships among the shorebirds. He also made a genius of his counselor by becoming curator of Birds and Mammals at the San Diego Natural History Museum. In 1977, he joined the fl edgling Hubbs Sea World Research Institute, a non-profi t organization in San Diego sponsored by the Sea World Parks and named in honor of the great ichthyologist Carl L. Hubbs, who became a great friend and supporter. His major research interests were in seabirds and shorebirds, and he conducted studies in many areas of the Western Hemisphere, from the subarctic to Antarctica. Starting in 1980, he began a major program of studying the avifauna of saline lakes in the western United States, with emphasis on environmental issues concerning Mono Lake, California, and Great Salt Lake, Utah. Except for a year in Washington, D.C., from 1987 to1988 as chief scientist at the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, he remained at Hubbs as Senior Research Biologist and Director of Research until 2001, when he and his wife semi-retired to Annapolis. He was honored to be named a research associate in the Division of Birds at the U.S. National Museum of Natural History, where he continues to conduct research in Canada and Mono Lake, as well as consult with various organizations. Joe was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2004.
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SUSAN LEE JEWETT Susan was born on June 2, 1945, in Reno, Nevada, and grew up on Long Island, New York. From an early age she spent summers in East Hampton, New York, learning to love the seashore and the natural surroundings of eastern Long Island. Those summer experiences sparked her interest in marine sciences, exploration, and all things nautical. Susan received a BS degree in zoology from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, in June 1967. Following a brief stint in graduate school and employment at the University of Louisville Medical School, she moved to the Washington, D.C., area and soon thereafter took a job in the National Museum of Natural History’s Division of Fishes, Smithsonian Institution. Starting as a museum technician, she eventually rose to collections manager, the position from which she retired in 2004, after serving 34 years in the Division of Fishes. During her early years with the Smithsonian, Susan served as a research assistant to Dr. Ernest A. Lachner, and they jointly published several taxonomic papers on the Indo-Pacifi c gobioid genus, Eviota. In later years her interests led to several fi eld trips to South America, at fi rst assisting Richard P. Vari on collecting trips to Venezuela and Peru, and later working with a Brazilian colleague conducting surveys of freshwater fi shes in the coastal rivers of Brazil. Susan has become widely known in ichthyological circles, in large part through her management of the Smithsonian’s fi sh collection and the loan and exchange activities within the Division of Fishes. As a consequence her fi eld experiences include a collecting trip to the North Atlantic with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, an expedition to Cuba sponsored jointly by the Center for Marine Conservation and the Smithsonian, and the Amazon Deep Channel Fishes Project (Calhamazon), conducted by John Lundberg, now of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. In recent years Susan has been immersed in coelacanth-related work. She was an advisor to the invertebrate zoologist who discovered coelacanths in Indonesia in 1997, and conducted the preservation of the coelacanth captured there in 1998. Her continued interest in coelacanth research has led to her involvement in coelacanth meetings and numerous lectures, both in scientifi c and public venues. Professional memberships include the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and the Biological Society of Washington, having held elected offi ce for each, the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, and the Association of Systematic Collections. Susan favors outdoor activities, namely gardening, birding, hiking, sailing, kayaking, and cross-country skiing. She hopes to relocate within a couple of years to East Hampton, New York, where she plans to involve herself with the many eastern Long Island natural history and conservation organizations. She was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000.
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DAVID HORN JOHNSON Dave was born in 1912. He was a curator of mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History from 1941 (except for World War II duty) to 1965, and head of the Division of Mammals from 1948 to 1965. He earned his PhD degree at the University of California at Berkeley under Joseph Grinnell and E. Raymond Hall. His dissertation was on the chipmunks of California, and he wrote a systematic review of the genus Eutamias. During World War II, he was assigned to Naval Medical Research Unit 2 and stationed on Guam where he developed his interests in Asiatic mammals. His publications about mammals of Korea, Nepal, and the Pacifi c Islands were signifi cant contributions to our knowledge of these areas. Dave was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1943, and terminated his membership in 1967.He died on August 12, 1996, at the age of 83.
RAYMOND EARL JOHNSON Ray was born in Peru, Nebraska, on October 26, 1914. He received a BA degree from Doane College in 1936, an MA degree from the University of Nebraska in 1938, and a PhD degree in zoology from University of Michigan in 1942. Ray worked as an aquatic biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1945 to 1946 and as fi sheries research supervisor from 1947 to 1951. He became an assistant federal aid supervisor (1951-56), chief of the fi sheries division (1956-58), chief of branch of federal aid (1958-59), assistant director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife (1959-71), and chief of the offi ce of environmental quality (1971-72). While with the Service he received the Distinguished Service Citation from the Department of Interior for his lasting contributions to the advancement of natural resource conservation and for the universal admiration and respect accorded him as a fi ne public servant. Ray contributed signifi cantly in wide-ranging aspects of resource research, management, and conservation education. As the Bureau’s chief science advisor, he successfully directed and advanced the course of fi sh and wildlife research in national and cooperating state programs. Ray served with distinction on many departmental and interagency committees dealing with a variety of science-oriented problems of national concern. He was a key fi gure in the establishment and implementation of Federal-State water quality standards. Under Presidential appointment, Ray productively discharged his responsibilities on the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission and his assignments to the United States-Japan Panel and United States-German Study Team on Water Pollution. Through his excellent rapport with people of all ages and classes, he was an outstanding communicator of conservation ideas and ideals. Ray was a member of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, American Fisheries Society, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, The Wildlife Society, and Sigma Xi. Ray was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1963 and terminated his membership in 1985. Ray died on July 14, 2004, in Arlington, Virginia.
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DAVID WARE JOHNSTON Born in Miami, Florida, on November 23, 1926, David was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where nature study and birds learned in the Boy Scouts became his prime interests. Under the training of Eugene P. Odum, he graduated from the University of Georgia with a BS degree in 1949 and an MS degree in 1950 in ecology and ornithology, while studying the relationships between plant succession and bird populations. Further training under Alden H. Miller at the University of California, Berkeley, led to a PhD degree in 1954; the subject was the life cycle of the California gull. At his fi rst academic position at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia in 1954, David’s interests in natural history, ornithology, and ecology intensifi ed. There, he conducted research on bird distribution in the state, and served as editor of Georgia’s bird journal, The Oriole. Academic moves to Wake Forest University in 1959 and the University of Florida in 1963 brought contacts with leading ornithologists such as Pierce Brodkorb and Oliver L. Austin, Jr., as well as an outstanding teacher’s award in 1973. He assumed a leadership role in the Florida Ornithological Society, becoming its president in 1973. Research in those days centered on bird migration, physiological ecology, and anatomy of the avian uropygial gland. David frequently attended national ornithological and ecology meetings, where he gave papers, and was editor of Bird-Banding and Ornithological Monographs, each for many years. Several grants from the National Science Foundation led to research on birds in Jamaica, Wake Island, the Cayman Islands, Belize, Malawi, and Alaska. He taught ornithology for 20 years at the Mountain Lake Biological Station of the University of Virginia, where he guided several students into careers in ornithology. Decades of fi eld research led to publication of a book dealing with the birdlife in the Mountain Lake region. While still a professor of zoology at the University of Florida, David was invited to become ecology program director of the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., in 1979. There he worked with the nation’s leading ecologists and expanded his interests in ecology and natural resource conservation. After a short stint at George Mason University, professional positions included project director at the National Academy of Sciences and consultant to the World Bank and World Wildlife Fund. David served as book editor for the Wildlife Management Institute (on the moose), Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (threatened and endangered species), the U.S. Forest Service (forest management practices), and Smithsonian Institution Press (neotropical migrant birds). A co-edited book on Ecology and Conservation of Neotropical Migrants received the best-edited book award from The Wildlife Society. Following his retirement from academia, David has played a prominent role in Virginia ornithology by serving on the board of directors of the Virginia Society of Ornithology, editing its avifauna series, and publishing A Guide to Bird Finding in Virginia, a best-seller. Additional current interests include bird taxidermy for local nature centers, consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Law Enforcement, identifying feathers from hawk and peregrine falcon foods, breeding bird surveys on Plummers Island, and writing books
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on the ecology of Dyke Marsh and the history of ornithology in Virginia. Over his professional life, David has published over 100 scientifi c papers, four books, and edited several other books of national and international signifi cance. David was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1983 and has been active on several committees including the biological survey.
CLYDE JONES Clyde was born on March 3, 1935, in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He was raised on a ranch in the sandhills of central Nebraska. He developed an early interest in wildlife in general and mammals in particular, while living and working on the family ranch. After graduating from Hastings College, Nebraska, in 1957, Clyde began serious studies of mammals as a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, from which he received the MS and PhD degrees. During his tenure at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, he conducted fi eld studies of primates, bats, and other mammals in Rio Muni, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, West Africa, as well as studies of mammals in the Southeast. In 1970, Clyde became chief of the mammal section of the Bird and Mammal Laboratories of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service housed in the U.S. National Museum of Natural History. He served as the director of the National Fish and Wildlife Laboratory and director of the Denver Wildlife Research Center. In 1982, he returned to academic appointments at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, where he served as professor of biological sciences and curator of mammals. He now is serving as a Paul Whitfi eld Horn Professor Emeritus. His current research is directed at the mammals of the Chihuahuan Desert of the Southwest and northern Mexico. Clyde received several awards including Outstanding Performance Spectra Achievement, Quality Performance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior, as well as the Antarctic Medal from the U.S. Department of State. Clyde was recognized with an Outstanding Researcher Award by Texas Tech University. He was a charter member of the senior executive service and a fellow of the Texas Academy of Science. Clyde is an honorary member of the Texas Society of Mammalogists, and has received the Hartley H. T. Jackson Award from the American Society of Mammalogists. Clyde has guided the studies of more than 20 graduate students. He has presented 20 technical papers and posters at professional meetings. He has published more than 190 scientifi c papers, including fi ve books, on various aspects of the biology of mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. Clyde was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1971, and was a consistent participant in the outings of the Club on the Island. At his departure from Washington, D.C., he was honored with a special gathering of friends on the Island. He continues as a non-resident member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club.
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DALE ALLAN JONES Dale was born on March 8, 1925, in San Jose, California. This was when the present “Silicon Valley” was the greatest fruit producing area of its time. Dale got his fi rst lesson in land abuse as he watched these deep agricultural soils become covered with concrete and asphalt to make way for the computer age. His father, Douglas Jones, was an electrician, “a man of the trade,” who struggled like most through the depression, but had a passion for the pursuit of wildlife that dominated Dale’s main interest in life from the time he was able to follow his dad until the present. After serving with the Marine Corps in the Pacifi c during World War II, Dale attended San Jose State and Utah State Colleges in pursuit of his career in wildlife management. In 1950, he was employed by the Utah Fish and Game Department as a game biologist. He later became a regional manager, assistant chief of game management, and chief of game management. It was during this time that his mentors (Harold S. Crane, Dr. D. I. Rasmussen, and W. Leslie Robinette) molded in Dale’s words a “bucket-assed” college kid, who thought he knew it all, into an ecologist with a questioning mind and a dedication to improve habitat for wildlife and fi sh. In 1958, the U.S. Forest Service needed someone to work on the elk/livestock issues confronting the Shoshone National Forest. After four years of clipping cages that were horse packed into the wilderness and counting elk pellet groups, his “fun” assignment was over and the family was transferred to Denver where Dale had a position on the range and wildlife staff. In 1965, he headed the range, wildlife, watershed, and multiple use staff on the San Juan National Forest in Durango, Colorado. He then became director of wildlife and fi sh in the regional offi ce at Albuquerque, New Mexico, and in 1977 was honored to become director of Wildlife, Fish, and Endangered Species for the Forest Service. Dale has been active in The Wildlife Society, serving as president of two chapters, as southwest region council representative, vice president, and president for two terms of the parent society. He also was active with the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, several other professional societies, and other wildlife advocacy groups. In 1977, Dale received the American Motors Conservation Award, Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Conservationist Award, and the New Mexico Game and Fish Department Conservation Award. He has authored or coauthored several important publications on mule deer ecology and management, including The Oak Creek Mule Deer Herd in Utah, which received The Wildlife Society’s Monograph of the Year Award in 1978. Dale was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1981 and served on several committees. He became a non-resident member in 1985. Dale’s family consists of his bride of 58 years, Lois, the willing wife that permitted him to pursue the career he loved; daughter Darlene, who has her own business and resides with her husband in Fredericksburg, Virginia; son Derris, who has worked for the Utah Fish and Game Division for the past 27 years; and son Del, who writes for the Money Section of USA Today. Dale also has four grandchildren. He is very proud of his entire family and enjoyed celebrating his Golden Wedding Anniversary with them by fl oating the Grand Canyon from Lee’s Ferry to Lake Powell. It was a great experience that he recommends highly for a Golden Anniversary celebration.
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THOMAS HENRY KEARNEY Thomas was born on June 27, 1874, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Knoxville High School and entered the University of Tennessee in 1889 at the age of 15! He assisted agrostologist F. Lamson-Scribner at the University in 1892, and did a special course in botany and geology at Columbia as assistant curator under N. L. Britton in 1893. Thomas was assistant agrostologist from 1894 to 1897 in Washington under Lamson-Scribner. He transferred to assistant botanist under Fred Coville and conducted botanical surveys of the Dismal Swamp of Virginia in 1898 and participated in the Harriman Alaska Expedition from 1898 to 1900. From 1900 to 1944, he was physiologist, rising through ranks in the Bureau of Plant Industry, spending time in the Southwest studying growth on alkali soils in 1901. From 1902 to 1905, he traveled in North Africa, Tunisia, and Sicily studying crops like dates and pistachios, which were introduced into the southwest. He also studied cotton in Egypt and began work in Arizona breeding cotton, including long-staples like Pima cotton. In 1920, the University of Arizona gave him an honorary LLD in recognition of his work with Pima cotton. He expanded from cotton to become the world expert on the Malvaceae. From 1925 to 1940, he became interested in the fl owering plants and ferns of Arizona, upon which he published in 1942 with Peebles. He retired in 1944 at the age of 70 and moved to San Francisco to work, at the invitation of Alice Eastwood, as research associate in botany at the California Academy of Sciences, revising the Arizona fl ora in 1951. On August 28, 1956, he was awarded a Certifi cate of Merit by the Botanical Society of America “for early theoretical contributions to plant geography, his work in cotton breeding, his systematic studies in Malvaceae, and his part in the preparation of the Flora of Arizona.” Thomas was a founding member and on the organizing committee of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900, but was terminated for not paying founding dues. He was elected in 1902 and was awarded an honorary membership in 1944. He died on October 19, 1956, in San Francisco, California.
KEITH R. KELSON Keith was born on August 11, 1918, in Wales, Utah. He received a BA degree in 1939, an MA degree in 1941 and a PhD degree in zoology in 1949 all from the University of Utah. The topic of his dissertation was speciation of rodents in the Colorado River drainage of southern Utah. He worked at the University of Arizona funded by a grant that had to do with the mammals of North America. When that project was completed, he joined the National Science Foundation as a mammalogist program director where he worked for many years. He published 12 papers between 1946 and 1959 dealing with mammals. He is the co-author with E. R. Hall of the two volume book, Mammals of North America. Keith was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1956 and terminated his membership in 1963.
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ELLSWORTH PAINE KILLIP Ellsworth (“Buddy”) was born on September 2, 1890, in Rochester, New York. He completed an AB degree at the University of Rochester in 1911 and worked as an associate curator at the Rochester Academy of Science until 1917. He was in military service from 1918 to 1919, during which time he won the Chevalier of the French Legion of Merit. After the War, he was appointed an aide in the Division of Plants at the Smithsonian Institution and became head curator in 1946 after the retirement of W. R. Maxon. Ellsworth retired in 1950 at the age of 60. Ellsworth was an avid collector and collected widely in the United States especially in Florida (1935-40, 1950-56) and in Colombia (1917-48). He also collected in Argentina, Brazil (1929), Chile, Cuba (1931, 1937), Jamaica (1916, 1920), Panama (1917-18, 1948), Peru (1929), and Venezuela (1943). He often accompanied other botanists such as A. C. Smith, E. C. Leonard, W. R. Maxon, F. W. Pennell, and P. C. Standley. He specialized in Bomarea (Amaryllidaceae) as well as Leguminosae and Passifl oraceae, and his name is attached to more than 600 species names. About 150 species are named for him. He was a corresponding member of the Venezuela Natural Science Society. He died on November 21, 1968, in Redlands, California. Ellsworth was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1922, served as president from 1934 to 1937, and was awarded an honorary membership in 1961. He appears in many Club archival photographs, such as those of removing the invasive Japanese honeysuckle and improving the cabin and grounds.
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WILLIS KING Willis was born on May 24, 1908, in Fayette County, Ohio. His degrees were from Wilmington College, Ohio (BS degree in education in 1929); Haverford College (MA degree in biology in 1930); and the University of Cincinnati (PhD degree in zoology in 1939). In 1968, North Carolina State University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree. He began to go to the Great Smokies before it was a park, while he was still in college, and became the fi rst wildlife technician for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from 1934 to 1940. He carried out original fi eld studies culminating in A Survey of the Amphibians and Reptiles of the Great Smoky National Park, and also initiated the park’s fi rst fi shery program. During those early years on rainy nights, the red salamander could be seen in fl oods crossing the roads, but the new road into Cade’s Cove destroyed some of the original wetland and its native wildlife. He was the fi rst fi shery biologist employed by the state of North Carolina from 1941 to 1944, and then was acting director of the Wildlife Resources Commission, 1945-48. He was chief of fi sh management, Tennessee, 1949-50. In 1951, Willis joined the U.S. Bureau of Sports Fisheries and Wildlife, Branch of Federal Aid, where he helped implement Dingell-Johnson program policies and procedures. He served as assistant regional director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Atlanta, 1956-57, for both sport and commercial fi sheries. Willis returned to Washington in 1957 to head the new branch of fi shery management services, Division of Fishery Services, where he developed cooperative programs with Indian tribes, national parks, U.S. Department of Defense, and other federal entities throughout the United States, thereby helping to open many waters to recreational fi shing. A highlight was the establishment of Cooperative Fishery Unit programs, a joint endeavor with states, 25 universities, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, emphasizing training and research. His last position was assistant director for Cooperative Services, 1970-73, when he was awarded the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Distinguished Service Award in 1971. Willis authored more than 30 publications dealing with fi shery management, herpetology, and environmental subjects; was principal author of a special report of Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Sport Fishing, Today and Tomorrow, 1962; and edited Wild Trout Management, 1975 (Symposium I), 1980 (Symposium II). Willis was active in the American Fisheries Society throughout his career. Willis was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1974 and was active until his death on June 5, 1998.
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WALTER JOHN EMIL KRESS John was born on March 4, 1951, in Illinois and received his education on the East Coast, graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1975. After returning from his fi rst two-month plant collecting expedition to Peru, he began his graduate work in tropical botany at Duke University. John pursued studies in Costa Rica and Panama on the systematics of Heliconia, a banana relative, as the subject of his dissertation and received his PhD degree in botany in 1981. Since then he has traveled to tropical areas around the world, including Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, China, Madagascar, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, French Guiana, and the Caribbean, studying and collecting heliconias, gingers, and bananas. John was the director of research at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida, from 1984 to 1988. After that, he was appointed curator and research scientist in the Department of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. He was chairman of that Department from 1997 to 2006. John is the writer of over 100 scientifi c and popular papers on tropical botany. He was the president executive director of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and founder/chair of the Tropical Biology Section of the Botanical Society of America. He also was the editor and the president of the Heliconia Society International, which is dedicated to furthering the appreciation, understanding, and use of heliconias and related plants in horticulture. His books, entitled Heliconia: An Identifi cation Guide, published by the Smithsonian Institution Press, and Heliconias – Las Lamaradas de la Selva Colombiana, published in Bogotá, include information on the botany and horticulture of these plants. A New Century of Biology – Essays for an Integrated Discipline co-edited with Gary Barrett was published in 2001. In 2005, his Plant Conservation: A recent history appraisal was published. He also is working on Genera Zingiberarum, which will be a classifi cation and treatise of the genera of the Zingiberales, including bananas, heliconias, gingers, and relatives. John’s research interests focus on the phylogeny of the monocotyledons and the systematics of Heliconia, gingers, and other tropical Zingiberales. His fi eld studies are concentrated on the evolution of breeding and pollination systems in plants, genetic variation and speciation in tropical angiosperms and conservation of tropical ecosystems. With other members of the Department of Botany he completed a fl oristic survey of Burma in 2003. He also has developed new taxonomy tools for species identifi cations, including DNA barcodes for plants and an instant image identifi cation by stems. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2001.
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KARL VON VORSE KROMBEIN Karl was born on May 26, 1912, in Buffalo, New York. His father was a physician and surgeon who had excellent training in biology and paleontology in high school and collected butterfl ies as a hobby. As a youngster Karl learned from him, collecting and rearing butterfl ies from the meadows and woods near his home. He started his college training in metallurgical engineering at Carnegie Tech. Discovering soon that he would be much happier as an entomologist, he transferred to Cornell. At fi rst he was attracted to medical entomology, but subsequently a course in taxonomy of Hymenoptera led to a lifelong career devoted to systematic and behavioral studies of solitary wasps and bees. Karl received BS, AM, and PhD degrees from Cornell University. After completing residency at Cornell in 1939, he worked briefl y for an insecticide company in western New York. In March 1941, he was appointed associate entomologist, Division of Insect Identifi cation, U.S. Department of Agriculture with an offi ce in what is now the National Museum of Natural History. Karl was to provide identifi cations of wasps and bees, to prepare revisionary studies, and to care for the national collection in those groups. After Pearl Harbor he was commissioned a fi rst lieutenant in the Army. Following training and several state-side assignments, he was appointed commanding offi cer of one of the Army Malaria Survey Units. His unit served with Fifth Air Force in New Guinea, Leyte, Luzon, and Okinawa. While in the fi eld, six days a week were spent in malaria survey work, but Karl reserved the seventh, Sunday, for collecting wasps and bees. He remained active in the Air Force Reserve, retired as a full colonel in 1972, and then was appointed the fi rst national consultant for entomology to the Air Force Surgeon General. He returned to the Museum on February 1, 1946. In 1951, Karl was appointed leader of taxonomic investigations of Hymenoptera with a staff of four specialists. Early in the post-war years he began an active program of fi eld work for collection and behavioral study of wasps and bees, collecting locally in areas that are now lost to suburbia’s increasing spread. Family vacations alternated between coastal North Carolina and West Virginia, providing him with the opportunity for fi eld work in two diverse ecological areas. In 1954, he started a trap-nesting program in the Washington area. Bundles of wooden traps with borings of four diameters were set out in areas likely to have numbers of twig-nesting wasps and bees. In 1956 Jack Clarke invited him to set out traps at Plummers Island. The program continued at the Island through 1964 and also included traps set out by Karl or collaborators near Buffalo, New York, coastal North Carolina, Archbold Biological Station in Florida, Southwestern Research Station, and other localities in Arizona. Karl’s book, Trap-nesting Wasps and Bees--Life Histories, Nests and Associates was published by the Smithsonian Press in 1967 and was supported in part by a grant from Washington Biologists’ Field Club. He had an active research program at the Island through the 1960s and published fi ve numbers in the Natural History of Plummers Island Maryland series including an annotated list of the 274 species
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of wasps that had been collected on the Island through 1963. After almost 25 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he transferred to the Smithsonian in 1965 to become the second chairman of the Department of Entomology, replacing Washington Biologists’ Field Club Member, Jack Clarke. The most important accomplishment during Karl’s chairmanship was the negotiation of the PL 480 contract between the Smithsonian and the National Museum of Colombo establishing the Ceylon Insect Project with himself as principal investigator. He was appointed a senior scientist when his term as chairman expired in mid-1971. The Ceylon Insect Project added numerous species to the national collection not represented previously, and many newly identifi ed species to the Colombo Museum collection. More than a dozen specialists in different orders of insects visited Ceylon during the 1970s with an assistant hired a couple of native technicians to assist in the fi eld and collected many specimens using a variety of techniques. Over 100 specialists all over the world were project collaborators; they studied and identifi ed the specimens collected in their specialties, describing many of them as new. Karl published a series of 21 revisionary and behavioral studies, Biosystematic Studies of Ceylonese Wasps, totaling more than 800 pages, including descriptions of many new species and genera as well as a wealth of behavioral observations. In 1980, Karl was honored with a second doctorate from Peradeniya, Sri Lanka for his extensive work on the Ceylon Insect Project. He was co-editor and co-author of a catalog of Hymenoptera in America north of Mexico in 1951 and served subsequently as chairman of the editorial board and co-author of the revised, computerized three-volume edition of the catalog in 1979 listing almost 17,500 species. Karl retired in 1993 at 81, but continued to be active in the fi eld and, when in Washington, was at his offi ce in the Natural History Building fi ve days a week. In August 2000, Karl was forced by declining health to fi nally close shop and move into an assisted living facility in Lorton, Virginia. Among his honors and awards are the Legion of Merit and Air Force Commendation Medals. He was an honorary member of the Entomological Society of Washington and the Societe Entomologique d’Egypte, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Entomological Society of America, a corresponding member of the American Entomological Society, and a research associate of the Archbold Biological Station. He was on the editorial board of Journal of South Asian Natural History. Ninety-three taxa of arthropods were named for him, several having Plummers Island as the type locality. He was honored in 1996 with a Festschrift volume of the Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Washington: Contributions on Hymenoptera and Associated Insects, which was dedicated to Karl V. Krombein. He was elected to Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1957, served as president from 1970 to 1973, and was awarded an honorary membership in 1995. He enjoyed greatly the camaraderie of the fi eld days and in his later years shopped for the gourmet cheddar and Swiss cheeses that accompanied our pre-dinner happy hour and the inevitable dessert pie. Karl married fellow Cornellian, Dottie Buckingham, in 1942 and they had three daughters: Kristen, Kyra, and Karlissa. The family made frequent weekend trips to Plummers Island during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Karl died on September 6, 2005, of cardiac arrest at the age of 93. His memorial plaque was the last installed on the Island.
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JAMES DONALD LAWREY Jim was born on December 15, 1949, in Arlington, Virginia, and grew up in Rockville, Maryland. He received a BS degree in biology from Wake Forest University in 1971, an AM degree in biology from the University of South Dakota in 1973, and a PhD degree in botany from Ohio State University in 1977. As a graduate student at Ohio State, Jim met Mason Hale, who was then curator of lichens at the National Museum of Natural History. During the summer of 1976, Mason invited Jim to work on a lichen growth study that had been started earlier on Plummers Island. This study, which was funded by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, was the fi rst to measure lichen growth photographically over an extended period of time. Jim and Mason also began analyzing lichens from Plummers Island for various heavy metals, especially lead. Initially the study sites were located entirely on Plummers Island. In 1965, these sites began receiving large levels of lead from atmospheric deposition from the American Legion Bridge, which is located immediately above the Island. Sites also were established on Bear Island and the Blue Ridge of western Virginia. Results of these studies, which documented changes in lichen growth in response to atmospheric pollution, were initially published in Science in 1979. These studies have continued under the sponsorship of the National Park Service. In 1977, Jim was appointed assistant professor of biology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. There he was responsible for teaching undergraduate courses in ecology, botany, and evolution, and graduate courses in plant ecology. He was involved in the development of the PhD program in Environmental Science and Public Policy. In 1982 he was promoted to associate professor and in 1993 became professor of biology. Jim has conducted numerous research projects for the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service that were designed to use lichens as bioindicators of atmospheric quality. He has also been interested in the phytochemistry and chemical ecology of lichens. Jim has published a book, Biology of Lichenized Fungi, and numerous book chapters and journal articles in the areas of lichen biology, Mycology, and chemical ecology. He has been invited to organize or participate in numerous symposia concerning lichens, biomonitoring, lichen symbioses, and lichen chemistry at national and international meetings. He has been active in the Botanical Society of America and in the American Bryological and Lichenological Society, serving as associate editor, secretary-treasurer, and president. He has also served as president of the Botanical Society of Washington. Jim was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1982 and served as vice president from 1993 to 1996, and as president from 1996 to 1999.
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DANIEL LONEY LEEDY
Dan was born on February 17, 1912, on a Butler, Ohio, farm where he spent his early years with his parents, four brothers, and two sisters. He attended the North Liberty, Ohio, elementary school, which consisted of two rooms, and he drove a Model T Ford to high school in Butler, some fi ve miles from home. He graduated as valedictorian of his 1930 class of 14 students and was one of the school’s star athletes. As a boy on the farm, he hunted and trapped game and fur bearers and learned to appreciate and respect nature and the land. Through encouragement and fi nancial support (about $1,500) from his parents and a variety of jobs at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, Dan was able to complete fi ve years of schooling and was awarded an AB degree with honors in 1934, with a major in geology from Miami University and a BSC degree in education in 1935. Receipt of fellowships from the then newly-created Ohio Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit at the Ohio State University allowed him to complete his MS and PhD degrees in zoology (wildlife conservation) in 1938 and 1940. He was an instructor in wildlife conservation at the University until drafted into the U.S. Army in April of 1942. He served as a Captain in the Medical Corps and was an aerial photo interpreter in Europe until 1945. He received a Bronze Medal in 1945. In September 1945, Dan became leader of the Ohio Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, where he continued the pheasant research he began as a graduate student. From this time until his retirement in December 1974, he served in several positions, all in the U.S. Department of the Interior: biologist-in-charge, Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit program, 1949-1957; chief, Wildlife Research Branch, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1957-1963; chief, Division of Research and Education, Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, 1963-1965; and senior scientist, Offi ce of Water Resources Research, 1965-74. After retirement from the Interior Department, he served as consultant/senior scientist for the National Institute for Urban Wildlife, until 1994. He worked hard to build the Cooperative Units and during his tenure as chief, considerable headway was made toward development of the Endangered Species Program and for establishment of the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center at Jamestown, North Dakota. This Center complemented the pioneering research on pesticide-wildlife relationships and nuisance animal control work done by the Patuxent and Denver Centers. Dan’s published articles, including chapters in several books, reviews, and papers on a wide variety of subjects (especially pheasants), number more than 100. Dan has received numerous awards, including the American Motors Conservation Award, 1958; U.S. Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award, 1972; Distinguished Alumni Award, the Ohio State University, 1975; and the Aldo Leopold Award for distinguished service to wildlife conservation, 1983. He was the fi rst to receive the Daniel L. Leedy Urban Wildlife Conservation Award, established in Dr. Leedy’s honor by the National Institute for Urban Wildlife, 1985. Dan was married to Barbara E. Sturges on November 25, 1945. They had a son, Robert Raymond, and a daughter, Kathleen Eleanor. Dan has been a member of many professional societies and was particularly active in The Wildlife Society, serving as president in 1952 and executive secretary from 1953 to 1957. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1960 and served for many years as chairman of the membership committee. He frequently served on the food committee, and for years he rolled up his sleeves to wash dishes and help clean up after the Club’s spring and fall outings, which he thoroughly enjoyed. It was with sadness and regret when, beginning about 1995, he found it impossible to walk to “the Island” because of severe spinal stenosis. Dan died on January 19, 2003.
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EMERY CLARENCE LEONARD
Emery was born on June 9, 1892, in Champaign, Illinois. He graduated from Lawrenceville High School in 1911 and completed a BA degree at Wittenberg College in 1915 and an MA degree at Ohio State College in 1916. He joined the Division of Plants at the National Museum January 1918, and was in military service from 1918 to 1919. He collected local fl ora from 1918 to 1924, and began collecting in Haiti with W. L. Abbot, January-July 1920, returning several times in 1925-26 and 1928-29. His speciality was the family Acanthaceae. He published nearly 500 new species in this family. About 30 species are named for him, mostly from Haiti.His specialty was the family Acanthaceae. He published nearly 500 new species in this family. About 30 species are named for him, mostly from Haiti. Emery died in 1968. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1924 and was awarded an honorary membership in 1968.
JOHN THOMAS LILL
John was born on December 30, 1968, in Washington, D.C. From an early age, he was interested in biology and natural history. He grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended college at the University of Maryland, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with an emphasis in ecology in 1990. He continued at the University of Maryland, earning an MS degree in conservation biology and sustainable development in 1992. After spending a summer in Costa Rica taking a fi eld course in tropical ecology, he became interested in plant-insect interactions and moved in 1993 to St. Louis to work on a PhD degree in ecology. Under the guidance of Robert J. Marquis, he studied the evolutionary ecology of leaf-tying caterpillars on oak trees in Missouri, earning his PhD degree in 1999. After graduate school, he did postdoctoral research in the Missouri Ozarks and taught as an adjunct professor at both University of Missouri-St. Louis and Washington University, spending a year at the Tyson Research Center fi eld station as an independent researcher. In the fall of 2002, he moved back to the D.C. area to join the faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences at George Washington University. During the school year, John teaches undergraduate courses in conservation biology and plant-animal interactions, and graduate courses in ecology and evolution. The main thrust of his research is focused on identifying the ecological factors shaping the diets of generalist insect herbivores. Most of his research is local, focusing on caterpillar-plant interactions in eastern forests. He enjoys sharing his interest in the natural world with children and is active in the Cub Scouts. John lives in Silver Spring with his wife, Diane, and three children; Patrick, Laura, and Sarah. John was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2006.
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FREDERICK CHARLES LINCOLN Fred was born on May 5, 1892, in Denver, Colorado. As a teenager, doing summer work at the Colorado Museum of Natural History in Denver, Fred became acquainted with student Alexander Wetmore, who showed him how to put up bird skins. That association and learning intensifi ed Lincoln’s fascination with birds, and in 1939, at the age of 21, he became the Colorado Museum’s Curator of Ornithology. As such, he did extensive fi eldwork in Colorado, Arizona, South Carolina, and Louisiana. He held that position until 1920 with time out from 1918 to 1919 to serve in the U.S. Army as a pigeon expert in the Signal Corps. In March 1920, Fred joined the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey as chief of the Section of Distribution and Migration of Birds, the agency’s bird banding operation to facilitate study of the movements and population dynamics of migratory birds. He headed the continental investigation of the status of migratory waterfowl and developed the continental fl yways concept, now the basis for formulating hunting regulations for migratory game birds and waterfowl. He devised the Lincoln Index, a formula for estimating total populations of waterfowl from recoveries of banded birds.
Fred was in charge of the U.S. bird banding program from 1920 to 1946. His division (later with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) had sole responsibility for all federal work on bird migration and distribution, and its fi les provided most of the distribution data for A.C. Bent’s Life History of North American Birds series and several editions of the American Ornithologists’ Union’s Check-list of North American Birds. Fred himself authored approximately 300 scientifi c and popular articles, and several books including Bird Migration (1939), and coauthored two highly acclaimed works, American Waterfowl (1930) with John C. Phillips, and Birds of Alaska (1959) with Ira N. Gabrielson.
An American Ornithologist Union member since 1910, he was elected a fellow in 1934, and served as its treasurer from 1945 to 1947. He received an honorary ScD degree from the University of Colorado in 1956. The next year, he was accorded the U.S. Department of the Interior’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award. He was a member of the Masons and the Cosmos Club.
An excellent fi eld researcher and companion, Fred was a compassionate man, devoted to his science and its practitioners, and greatly admired by his coworkers and friends. He was married to Lulu. He died in Washington, D.C., on September 16, 1960.
He was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1922 and served as president from 1937 to 1940.
JOSEPH PAUL LINDUSKAJoe was born in Butte, Montana, on July 25, 1913. He received a BA degree in 1936 and an MA degree
in 1939 in zoology and entomology, respectively, from the University of Montana, and a doctorate degree in 1950 in vertebrate zoology from Michigan State University.
Joe’s career began as a fi sheries biologist in Yellowstone National Park. He then served as a biologist with the Michigan Department of Conservation, working on the ecology and land-use relationships of small mammals on southern Michigan farmlands. In 1943, he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a
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research entomologist, working on war-related projects at the Orlando laboratory. In 1947, he transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service at the Patuxent Research Refuge. There, he directed pioneering research on the effects of DDT and other pesticides on wildlife. In 1951, he was appointed assistant chief of the Service’s Game Management Branch.
From 1956 to 1966, Joe worked for Remington Arms Company as director of wildlife and public relations. He developed the wildlife research and agricultural demonstration program at the 4,000-acre Remington Farms, south of Chestertown, Maryland. Joe returned to government in 1966 as associate director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife in charge of staff functions, endangered species legislation, conservation education, and international affairs. In 1973, he was designated senior scientist. From 1974 until his retirement in 1978, he was vice-president for science for the National Audubon Society.
Refl ecting the breadth of Joe Linduska’s professional talents was his service as executive director of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and chair of the Association’s conservation council. He was the president of The Wildlife Society from 1967 to 1968, and served on the Society’s board of directors for three years. In 1963, Joe received The Wildlife Society’s Conservation Education Award and Outdoor Writers Association of America’s Jade of Chiefs Award. He received the Interior Department’s Conservation Service Award in 1964, and the wildlife profession’s highest honor, the Aldo Leopold Award, in 1984. Joe wrote numerous popular and technical articles, and was editor of Waterfowl Tomorrow (1964). He contributed columns on conservation matters for Sports Afi eld and Kent County (Maryland) News. Joe was a genuinely brilliant and humorous person. Those who enjoyed his friendship treasured that association.
Joe was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1955.He died on September 1, 1993, in Chestertown, Maryland.
MARCUS WARD LYON, JR.Marcus was born on February 5, 1875, at Rock Island Arsenal,
the son of Captain Marcus Ward and Lydia Anne Lyon. In his early years, he lived at various army stations where he became interested in nature and started to collect. He went to Rock Island High School and graduated in 1893, and in 1897 he received a degree from Brown University.
After graduating from college, Marcus worked for one year as a bacteriologist in North Carolina Medical College. In 1898, he moved to Washington, D.C., and worked as an aid and as an assistant curator in the Division of Mammals of the U.S. National Museum of Natural History. He went to Venezuela in 1899 with Lieutenant Wirt Robinson to collect mammals for the museum. Marcus attended George Washington University, earning his MS degree in 1900, his MD degree in 1902, and his PhD degree in 1913. During this period he also was teaching physiology and bacteriology in the Medical School of Howard University. He married Dr. Martha Maria Brewer of Lanham, Maryland, in 1902. In 1904, Marcus traveled to the Louisiana Purchase
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Exposition in St. Louis and in 1905 he attended the Louis and Clark Exposition in Portland, Oregon, on both trips representing the U.S. National Museum. Then in 1911, he and his wife toured Europe, visiting museums and zoologists. From 1915 to 1918, he taught for the Medical School of George Washington University on the subjects of bacteriology, pathology, veterinary zoology, and parasitology. In 1919, he and his wife both were hired at the South Bend Clinic, where they worked for many years. During World War I, he worked as a pathologist in Walter Reed General Hospital and in 1919 was appointed to be a major in the Medical Reserve Corps.
Marcus wrote over 160 papers, focusing on mammalogy and pathology. He also was an active member in scientifi c organizations. He was corresponding secretary in 1904 and recording secretary from 1915 to 1919 of the Biological Society of Washington, treasurer and then president of the Indiana Academy of Science, and president of the American Society of Mammalogists from 1931 to 1933.
Marcus was elected as a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1917. He died in 1942.
WILLIAM M. MANN Bill was born on July 1, 1886, in Helena, Montana. His father, a harnessmaker, was an ardent sportsman and amateur taxidermist. He died when Bill was only seven. Bill later said his earliest recollections were of a mounted owl in their home, geese in their back yard, and intimate studies of wildlife on hunting trips with his father. Insects in particular fascinated him, and before grammar school he was engrossed in an investigation over why certain beetles inhabited ant colonies. The dedication to research and collecting lasted until his death. He ran away from home when he was thirteen years old with the notion of going to South Africa to help the Boers. After some days of shivering and starving in the Rocky Mountains, he came to a cattle ranch where they fed him and let him stay on for the winter as a chore boy. He was restored to his family and they sent him to the Staunton Military Academy to be taught discipline - he was now fourteen! Bill graduated in 1905 from the Staunton Military Academy, Virginia, and then was a student at State College of Washington from 1907 to 1909. He completed his BA degree at Stanford University in 1911. He enrolled at Harvard in a doctoral program in entomology and traveled widely in the Middle East for his graduate research. Bill was awarded a DSc degree in 1915. After his doctoral research, a fellowship paid for his studies in Fiji and Australia. In 1916, he became an entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., a position he maintained until 1925. In May of 1925, he was appointed superintendent of the National Zoological Park. What a step up from 1904 when he had a job, paying $1 a day, cleaning animal cages at the same zoo. The title was changed to director on October 30, 1926. In 1926, he was married to Lucille Quarry. Their married life was a team effort involving travels to Africa and Asia for collecting specimens and tending to the Zoo from an apartment opposite the Adam’s Mill Road gate. During their courtship, he escorted Lucille and a girl friend of hers to a zoo in New York. An offi cial of the park invited the three of them to the reptile house to inspect a rare exhibit. Lucille shuddered and said she and her friend would wait outdoors. Inside, Bill forgot that his intended and her friend were outside in a rainstorm and were soaked for more than an hour while he studied the snakes inside! Their apartment in Washington, D.C., frequently served as a nursery for four-footed babies. Bill arrived home one night with a new-born bear cub in his shirt. “I seem to have this bear,” he stated. Lucille sighed, asked for a minute “to get used to it,” and then went to the kitchen for formula and the baby bottle. The apartment building management sent a circular around one day prohibiting animals among the tenants. Bill met the issue
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head on with a letter to the property’s board of directors. It was terse: “Gentlemen. Please may we have a lion in our apartment?” The directors arrived in a horrifi ed bloc. Their wayward tenant soon had them on their hands and knees, mewing at the lion cub that stirred the rebellion. That ended the no-animal directive for the Manns. Bill was an active promoter of the Zoo. He led expeditions seeking rare specimens. During his tenure he raised funds for construction of the reptile house, and during the depression garnered Works Progress Administration funds for the bird house, elephant house, and small mammal-great ape facility. The landlords were not the only victims run over by Mann animals. Bill faced an annual struggle with Congress over appropriations. Sometimes he would show up on the Hill for a budget hearing accompanied by one or more of his charges. Bill found that if a Congressman had a talking mynah bird perched on his shoulder, he was less likely to erase Zoo money from a pending bill. During his long tenure, he held the Zoo together through World War II and the Korean War, lean years for public appropriations. He served under fi ve different presidents of the United States, and upon his retirement had earned the respect of the Washington community and the International Union of Zoological Parks. His retirement in 1956 was an event which touched many biologists in Washington, D.C., and abroad. His lifelong interest in entomology, which continued while at the Zoo, led him to donate his insect collection to the U.S. National Museum in May of 1955. There were 136,288 specimens of which 116,000 were ants. The collection included 700 types. Bill wrote two noteworthy books: Wild Animals in Captivity (fi rst published in 1930 but reprinted up to 1948); and Ant Hill Odyssey (his autobiography). He died on October 10, 1960. Bill was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1922 and was awarded an honorary membership in 1956.
ALBERT MURRAY MANVILLE, II Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on December 12, 1946, Al developed an early interest in wildlife conservation, much through the infl uence of his father, the late Richard Manville, also a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. With a growing interest in the outdoors, Al received a BS degree in zoology/ecology from Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, where his research on black bears originally began. Following a four-year stint in the U.S. Navy as a Mandarin Chinese interpreter working for the National Security Agency, he earned an MS degree in natural resources and wildlife management from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. His thesis was a two-year study of the parasites and diseases of black bears in Northern Wisconsin. Al went on to earn his PhD degree at Michigan State University in wildlife ecology and management, again studying black bears. His research involved radio tracking bruins to assess the impacts of humans on bear movements, dispersion, den site selection, and survival. All told, Al has immobilized and handled over 100 black bears in the East and several grizzly bears in the West. Teaching has been a passion of Al’s, including fi ve years at Michigan State teaching environmental studies and one year teaching wildlife population analysis, and a short stint as an affi liate professor for the Biology Department at George Mason University. Al also has been a member of the affi liate faculty of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School Evening Programs since 1983, and has taught three courses for the Graduate School: wildlife ecology, advanced wildlife ecology, and wildlife policy and environmental ethics. Al also taught ecology as an adjunct professor for Johns Hopkins University, having done so since 2000. Al’s fi rst post-graduate job was big game records coordinator for the Boone and Crockett Club from
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1981 to 1983, where he maintained status with them as an offi cial measurer until 2001. From 1983 to 1994, he worked for Defenders of Wildlife, fi rst as a consultant, then as senior staff wildlife biologist, and more recently as director of science policy. Al helped win some signifi cant environmental victories for the planet, most notably as a member of the U.S. Scientifi c Delegation on High Seas Driftnetting in 1991, later that year co-leading an initiative in the United Nations garnering a unanimous General Assembly ban on large-scale high-seas driftnetting worldwide. He also helped write, testify for, and seek passage of the High Seas Driftnet Fisheries Enforcement Act of 1992, implementing the United Nations ban in the United States. Al also helped write and worked to help pass seven other environmental laws dealing with marine plastic debris, driftnets, degradable plastics, oil spill prevention, and U.S. Navy plastic dumping. He also chaired a large coalition of more than 50 national and regional groups called the Entanglement Network Coalition (1986-94), helping win $16.2 million in federal research appropriations over 6 years. Al founded the Nongame Coalition and co-founded the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Plastics/Keystone Dialogue on Plastics, helping convince the Navy to stop all overboard dumping of plastics worldwide. From 1994 to 1996, Al served as the executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club in Upstate New York, helping sizably increase the club’s membership, expand its outreach, and improve its conservation initiatives, particularly in habitat conservation, alpine plant protection, and erosion prevention. He supervised a staff of about 85. In 1997, Al served on the steering committee of the Endangered Species Coalition in Washington, D.C. In late 1997, Al was offered a branch chief’s position with the Division of Migratory Bird Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arlington, Virginia. He worked in that position for 1.5 years. He now serves as a senior wildlife biologist in charge of bird strike policy and international migratory bird issues. In 1999, Al was presented the Conservation Service Award from the Secretary of Interior for bird conservation efforts with the electric utility industry. Al currently chairs the Communication Tower Working Group, partnering with the communication industry, other federal and state agencies, academicians, researchers, and non-government organizations. Al’s research efforts have been extensive, including six summers in the Aleutian Islands assessing impacts of marine debris and fi shing gear on seabirds and marine mammals; fi ve summers studying impacts of humans on brown bears at Katmai National Park, Alaska; eleven years working on wolf-human interactions in Alaska; and fi ve years assessing recovery from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. He has been invited to participate on the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council as well as on the Academy’s Marine Board. He served as the wildlife consultant for the fi lming of Walt Disney Productions/Touchstone Pictures fi lming of Jack London’s White Fang, and he was a member of StarKist’s StarKids Advisory Panel. Al also served on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Nature Conservancy magazine for fi ve years. He has been a certifi ed wildlife biologist with The Wildlife Society since 1983 and has served on the boards of three nonprofi t organizations. Al has published more than 120 popular and scientifi c titles on research fi ndings and he has been invited as a featured guest speaker well over 130 times. Getting the work out on environmental issues is important. As such, Al has been quoted in the print media hundreds of times, and has made over 70 television and 80 radio appearances on the environment. Al was elected as a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1991, served as a member of the board of managers from 1992 to 1993, and chaired the centennial committee from 2000 to 2001.
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RICHARD HYDE MANVILLE Dick was born in Tuxedo, New York, on November 20, 1910. He grew up in the beautiful Ramapo Mountains and developed an early interest in natural history and the outdoors. This interest led him to become an Eagle Scout within the Boy Scouts, and for many summers he worked as a nature counselor and nature director at Boy Scout Camps in New York State. After this, he spent quite a few summers working in National Parks as a ranger naturalist. Dick graduated from high school in 1928 and moved on to Dartmouth College, from which he received his AB degree in 1932. At college he became very interested in cross country skiing and canoeing, and joined the Dartmouth Outing Club. One noteworthy trip with this group was their voyage down the full length of the Connecticut River. Dick then earned his MS degree at University of California, Los Angeles, studying termites. Dick was married to Mary Louise Reidell in 1940. Dick’s PhD degree studies were interrupted by World War II. He served as a medical supply offi cer in the U.S. Army Medical Administration Corps from 1942 to 1946. Dick was involved in an attempt to save General Patton’s life around V. E. Day when General Patton had broken his back. Unfortunately, Patton died before proper equipment could be located. After the War he fi nished his PhD degree at the University of Michigan on a small mammal study at the Huron Mountain Club. Dick began his professional career working as an assistant professor and then associate professor of zoology at Michigan State University, teaching mammalogy, zoogeography, and general zoology, as well as assisting with ornithology, ecology, and wildlife management. He had the reputation among students as a tough, but fair and honest, professor. In 1955, he took a job as curator of mammals at the New York Zoological Society. From 1956 to 1958, he worked as editorial assistant for the McGraw-Hill Company, and began at the same time a position as editor of the Journal of Mammalogy. Dick was very precise in his editorial work, and also he liked to give young scientists a chance to publish. He was well known for his ability in this area and advised other editors as well as establishing publishing standards. In 1958, he became chief of the mammal section of the Bird and Mammal Laboratories of the Division of Wildlife Research in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1960, he was appointed as director of the Bird and Mammal Laboratories. He went on an expedition to study walruses in the Bering Sea in 1961 and again in 1968. Dick testifi ed before a Senate subcommittee multiple times to protect species by getting them the status of threatened or rare and endangered. In 1970, he became senior zoologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and worked in that position until he retired in 1972. Over the summers, Dick often worked in parks, including Acadia National Park, Shenandoah National Park, Glacier National Park, as well as the Trailside Museum. He also went on expeditions to New Mexico, Michigan, Florida, and Gaspe, Quebec. Some of the scientifi c organizations that Dick belonged to were the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Society of Mammalogists (editor from 1956 to 1961, and vice president from 1964 to 1965),
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the American Ornithologists’ Union, the Michigan Academy of Arts and Science, the Wilson Ornithological Society, the American Society of Ichthyology and Herpetology, the Society of Systematic Zoology, the Ecological Society of America, The Wildlife Society, the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Council of Biological Editors, the Arctic Institute of North America, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Nature Conservancy, the Wilderness Society, the Michigan Audubon Society, and the Biological Society of Washington (member of editorial board from 1962 to 1963, and chairman of this board from 1963 to 1964), as well as a member of the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C., and the Explorers Club of New York. He wrote over 65 papers for journals, and also wrote many book reviews. His most noteworthy publications include A Study of Small Mammal Populations in Northern Michigan, Specialized Mammalian Terminology, and Distribution of Alaskan Mammals. Dick was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1959 and played an active part in the Club activities, serving as its secretary from 1964 to 1971. Later, in 1974, he was awarded an honorary membership in the Club. His interest in the Club grew during the last few years of his life and he frequented Plummers Island. In 1968, he published Natural History of Plummers Island, Maryland: Annotated list of the vertebrates: Special Publication of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club: 1-44. Dick died on August 4, 1974, at his home in Arlington, Virginia. As he requested, his ashes were scattered over Plummers Island.
MILLARD CALEB MARSH Millard was born in 1872. He earned his BS degree from Cornell University in 1897 and his MS degree from George Washington University in 1905. Most of his career was spent as a government ichthyologist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. Among his signifi cant publications was the classic The Fishes of Puerto Rico, which he coauthored with Barton Evermann. He was a member of the Biological Society of Washington (serving as recording secretary), the American Fisheries Society, the Society of American Bacteriologists, and the University Club of Washington. Millard was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated his membership in 1913. Millard died in 1936.
WILLIAM RALPH MAXON William was born on February 27, 1877, in Oneida, New York. His father was an editor and owner of a newspaper and undoubtedly had an infl uence on his son’s life. He graduated from high school in 1894 with honors in Latin and English. He graduated from Syracuse University in 1898, where he wrote a paper on the Hart’s-tongue fern. He completed that year at the New York Botanical Garden as an assistant, where he studied ferns with L. M. Underwood. He became a temporary aide in cryptogamic botany at the U.S. National Museum in 1899, rising to become equivalent to chairman of botany until his retirement in 1946. He made nine major fi eld trips, visiting Jamaica (repeatedly), Cuba, and Central America, until a heart attack in 1931 ended his fi eld trips. William built the United States fern collections from practically nothing to 150,000 specimens. He accepted many administrative responsibilities including editor of Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences (1919-17), president of the American Fern Society (1919-33), and editor of its journal (1934-44).
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He was honored with a DSc degree from his alma mater, Syracuse University, in 1921. William also was a member of the Cosmos Club, Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the Botanical Society of Washington, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a founder of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900, vice president from 1919 to 1921, and president from 1922 to 1924. William died on February 25, 1948, in Terra Ceia, Florida. He was eulogized by Weatherby as a man who “will stand in the fi rst rank of the systematic pteridologists of his time. ... his achievement is ... a series of shafts of light thrown into dark places.” One generic name honors him (Maxonia C. Chr.). Relatively few fern species were named for him (11) since he named his own collections, but 65 species of fl owering plants honor him.
WALDO LEE MCATEE
Mac was born on January 21, 1883, in Japala, Indiana. He attended the University of Indiana and received an AM degree in biology in 1904. His entire professional career from 1904 to 1947 was with the Bureau of Biological Survey of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its successor agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of Interior. In 1935, he created an abstracting service for scientifi c publications which was called the Wildlife Review. He served as the editor for 12 years from 1935 to 1947. Mac’s greatest contribution was in the research of the food habits of birds and mammals. He developed the Division of Food Habits Research within the Biological Survey and served as its fi rst director. His extensive knowledge of the food of birds led to many publications (over 750), including critiques of protective coloration and certain Darwinian theories. He also was interested in folklore and nature lore and published articles in this area of study, especially in regard to the various folk names of birds. Mac’s interest in folk names and myths in natural history was focused to a great extent on the ribald and prurient. He published an amazing paper, Nomina Abitera, that specifi cally records and discusses the application of “dirty words” in mapping and the scientifi c literature. As a consequence, most of his investigations in this area were, of necessity, privately published. Much of this literature is extremely humorous, although with a decided aura of scholarship as well. His critiques of Darwinian principles were penetrating, but for the times decidedly iconoclastic and very much out of step with the then-emerging “modern synthesis” so that he was, and probably still is, studiously ignored. His papers are in the archives at University of North Carolina and doubtless would make very interesting reading. Mac was active in the American Ornithologists’ Union and served as its treasurer for many years. He
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was instrumental in the creation of The Wildlife Society and in the establishment of the Journal of Wildlife Management, serving as its initial editor. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. He conducted a signifi cant amount of research directed toward the biota of Plummers Island and the Washington, D.C., area. His A sketch of the Natural History of the District of Columbia, published in 1918, is a classic 142-page publication of regional signifi cance. In addition, he published on the Plummers Island fi shes, Cercopidae, Cicadidae, Dermapera, Diptera, Membracidae, and Orthoptera. Mac received the Distinguished Service Award with gold medal from the Department of Interior for his many scientifi c accomplishments. In 1963, his alma mater honored him with an honorary Doctor of Science degree for his scientifi c accomplishments. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1905 and was awarded an honorary membership in 1960. Mac was married to Fannie and they had a son and a daughter. He retired in 1947 and lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for many years of active retirement. He died of inoperable cancer of the stomach on January 7, 1962.
RICHARD EDWARD MCCABE Dick was born on August 1, 1946, in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Robert A. and Marie S. McCabe. His father, Bob McCabe, was chairman of the Department of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 27 years. Aside from extensive outdoor experiences with his family, Dick formally was introduced to the fi eld of natural resource conservation when he was employed in 1969 by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. This duty as a water quality specialist followed his graduation from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, and preceded graduate work in Environmental Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With an MS degree earned in 1971, Dick continued graduate studies in mass communications and, from 1973 to 1976, served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Graduate School and Institute for Environmental Studies. In 1977, Dick joined the Wildlife Management Institute as director of publications and in 1988, he was made secretary. With the Institute, he has coordinated the annual North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference since 1986 and edited or co-edited the Conference Transactions from 1986 through 1995. He became vice president in 1999 and executive vice president in 2001. He wrote popular books on wood ducks and moose hunting in Alaska and coauthored a book with Club member Henry M. Reeves on the natural and ethnozoological histories of pronghorn. He also edited and produced ecology and management books on big game, mule and black-tailed deer, waterfowl, elk, white-tailed deer, mourning doves, wood ducks, and moose. Dick wrote numerous magazine articles on conservation matters and was the author or co-author of booklets and chapters for wildlife management books. He is a member of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the Outdoor Writers Association of America, The Wildlife Society, and the Boone and Crockett Club (professional member). Dick was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1991. His particular professional interest is ethnozoology. A resident of Annapolis, Maryland, his personal interests include hunting, fi shing, dog training, wildlife and Native American art, and experiencing the outdoors with his two children and six grandchildren.
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ROY WALLACE MCDIARMID Roy was born on February 18, 1940, in Santa Monica, California, and grew up in Whittier, California. As a youngster, he spent many weekends tramping the Whittier hills looking for snakes and other interesting critters and frequently had unusual pets (most of the local amphibian and reptile species and an assortment of other critters including a screech owl, red-tailed hawk, crows, slow loris, coatimundi, etc.). Once he got a car and learned how to drive, he spent many weekends driving roads in the deserts of Southern California looking for snakes. In his sophomore year at the University of Southern California, he learned from one professor that with hard work and some luck one could make a living as a professional zoologist. He changed his major from premed to zoology, began concentrating on grades rather than social life, and was admitted to graduate school in 1961. He received an MS degree in 1966 for a thesis titled A study in biogeography: The herpetofauna of the Pacifi c lowlands of western Mexico and a PhD degree in 1968 for a dissertation titled Comparative morphology and evolution of the neotropical frog genera Atelopus, Dendrophryniscus, Melanophryniscus, Oreophrynella and Brachycephalus. Roy has spent most of his career in museums and universities working on the systematics, behavior, ecology, and biogeography of amphibians and reptiles. His thesis work focused on the herpetofauna of dry forests in western Mexico, and he has spent considerable time in the fi eld in Mexico, often working with colleagues from the Museo de Zoologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Roy was introduced to tropical wet forest habitats through classes with the Organization for Tropical Studies program in Costa Rica in 1966 and, since that time, he has done most of his fi eld research in the Neotropics. He organized and taught several courses in the Tropical Studies program in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After a short time at the University of Chicago, he moved to Tampa and took a job at the University of South Florida. There Roy taught and directed graduate students from 1968 to 1978, primarily working with the ecology of Florida species of amphibians and reptiles. In Florida he served as state chairperson for a subcommittee of the Florida Committee on Rare and Endangered Plants and Animals and edited a volume on the Endangered and Threatened Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. He fi rst visited South America in 1976 to help establish a program in tropical ecology for the University of South Florida. He spent nearly six months in Ecuador after coming to Washington in 1978. Since arriving at the National Museum of Natural History, he has focused his research on understanding the diversity and natural history of amphibians and reptiles in lowland rainforests of Central and South America and has spent many months in Amazonian rainforest sites in Peru. He also co-organized a major expedition to the Cerro de la Neblina of southern Venezuela during 1983-85 and is an authority on the herpetofauna of the Guayana Highlands of that region. During his career Roy has spent more than four years doing fi eld work in 15 countries in the western hemisphere. He is the author and editor of more than 100 scientifi c publications and three books entitled: Measuring and Monitoring Biological Diversity - Standard Methods for Amphibians; Snake Species of the World - A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, and Tadpoles - The Biology of Anuran Larvae.
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Roy has served as a consulting reviewer for books published by the University of Oklahoma Press, Princeton University Press, and the University of Chicago Press. He was the science editor for the reptiles and amphibians section of Our Living Resources, 1995, and served as herpetological editor for the American Midland Naturalist from 1985 to 1991. He is a member of 24 scientifi c societies and was elected to the board or council of several. Roy was elected president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, and also was president of the Herpetologists’ League and treasurer of the Society of Systematic Biologists. He has received many research grants and other honors during his career including recognition as distinguished teacher of the year at the College of Natural Sciences, University of South Florida; special achievement award, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; award for outstanding publication, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and special achievement award, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. He was elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and member of the Societe Internationale pour l’Etude et le Protection des Amphibians, and the International Herpetological Committee, World Congress of Herpetology in 1989. In 1998, Roy and several other members of the Integrated Taxonomic Information System Partnership, with which he serves as chair of the Taxonomic Work Group, received Vice President Gore’s Hammer Award. Roy was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1986. He served as vice president from 2001 to 2005. Roy is married to Grace A. Wyngaard, a biology professor at James Madison University and a past program director at the National Science Foundation. They live in Falls Church, Virginia, where Roy spends his non-work time gardening and chasing antiques.
RONALD J. MCGINLEY Ronald was born on September 30, 1950, in Palo Alto, California. He attended Monterey Peninsula College and Humboldt State University from 1968 to 1970. He transferred to the University of California, Davis, where he received a BS degree in 1972 and a PhD degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1978. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Kansas (Lawrence) from 1978 to 1979. Ronald was an assistant professor of biology and assistant curator of entomology at Harvard University from 1979 to 1982. He started work at the Smithsonian in 1983. He worked on systematics and biology of bees and on pollination ecology. Ronald has many publications on this area of research. He was concerned about the care, use, and growth of natural history collections and published a paper in 1993 entitled Where’s the management in collection management?. He left the Smithsonian in 2000 to take a position at the Illinois Natural History Survey. Ronald has received many scholarships and grants including several from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Society of Systematic Zoology, Cambridge Entomological Society, and the Entomological Society of America. Ronald was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1985. Ronald terminated his membership in the Club.
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RANDOLPH EVANS BENDER MCKENNEY Randolph was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 7, 1878. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BS degree in 1898, an MS degree in 1899, and a PhD degree in 1901. He worked as an assistant vertebrate biologist and a botanist in Pennsylvania from 1896 to 1899 and as a professor of biology at Santa Ana High School from 1899 to 1900. Randolph worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, as an expert pathologist and physiologist from 1901 to 1902. He worked as an assistant professor of botany at George Washington University from 1902 to 1904. He worked as an expert pathologist and physiologist for the United Fruit Company from 1904 to 1908 and again for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1909 to 1919. Randolph was a member of the Society of Bacteriology, the Phytopathology Society, the Chemical Society, the Academy of Political and Social Science, the Washington Biological Society, the Philadelphia Society, and the Cosmos Club. His areas of expertise included development of the embryo sac, California ecology, luminous bacteria, plant nutrition, nature and properties of oxidases, tobacco diseases, and physiology and pathology of the banana. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1903 and terminated his membership in 1912. Randolph died in 1941.
BROOKE MEANLEY Brooke was born in Riderwood, Baltimore County, Maryland, on January 19, 1915. He spent much of his youth in natural history activities which directed him towards a professional career in wildlife biology. He was educated at McDonogh High School and the University of Maryland, where he received his BA degree in 1942. He served in World War II from 1942 to 1946 and was responsible for rehabilitating injured soldiers in Atlanta and Macon, Georgia. The activity he enjoyed most was taking rehabilitating soldiers on nature hikes in the woods and wetlands of the surrounding areas. After military service, he attended the University of Maryland again and received his MA degree in 1949. After graduate school, he married Anna Gilkeson in 1950 and they had one daughter, Louise, in 1960. He worked for the Division of Birds at the U.S. National Museum from 1949 to 1950, where he honed his ornithological skills and worked with many of the experts in ornithology. From 1950 to 1957, he was employed as a wildlife research biologist for the Wildlife Research Laboratory, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Denver, Colorado. His assignments were at fi eld stations in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and Alexandria, Louisiana, which gave him opportunities to maximize his passion to view birds in fi eld locations, while conducting research on blackbirds. He published numerous articles on various aspects of his research dealing with the distribution, migration, ecology, and management of blackbirds in relation to agricultural crop damage. His research during the latter part of this period focused on the management of birds and mammals as related to direct or artifi cial seeding of longleaf pine. His research discovered that the chemical compound Thiram, when treated on pine seedlings, repelled bird use. Seedling success rose from 0-300 to 2,000-5,000 per acre. From 1957 to 1977, he was employed by the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, Maryland. His studies continued to be directed at blackbirds and he trapped and banded thousands of birds. He is credited with
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helping to design the very effective decoy trap used to capture blackbirds. His fi eldwork in the Southeast gave him many opportunities to explore the wetlands of this region, which became the focus on his fi rst book, Swamps, River Bottoms, and Canebrakes, which was published in 1972. During this period, he also conducted extensive studies on various rail species and published the classic North American Fauna monographs on the natural history of the king rail. He received a Special Achievement Award for the outstanding publication on the king rail in 1969. Several years later he published another North American Fauna monograph on the Swainson’s warbler. Brooke became an associate member of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1935, an elected member in 1952, and a fellow in 1974. He published over 125 articles about his research and natural history observations and assisted many other researchers with their studies. He retired in 1977, and spent most of his time writing books, including Birds and Marshes of the Chesapeake Bay Country, Blackwater, Birdlife at Chincoteague, Waterfowl of the Chesapeake Bay Country, and The Patuxent River Wild Rice Marsh. In 1997, he and Anna moved to Maine to live with their daughter Louise and their two grandchildren. Brooke was the constant companion of his bed-ridden wife until her death in 2000. He enjoys spending time writing books and exploring the marshes and forests of coastal Maine. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1961 and enjoyed many of the Club activities. Brooke died peacefully on August 19, 2007, at his home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
O. LLOYD MEEHEAN Lloyd was born in 1902 in Minnesota. He received his BS degree in 1927 and his MS degree in 1932 in ecology from the University of Minnesota. His PhD degree in zoology was received from Ohio State University in 1940. Prior to entering the federal government service, Lloyd was employed as an investigator of lakes and streams for the Minnesota Game and Fish Department in 1927. For two years he was in charge of a stream pollution survey for the city of Duluth, Minnesota. Lloyd was associated with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor agency, the Bureau of Fisheries, beginning in 1930, when he became a biologist at the Fairport Station in Iowa. He also served at Natchitoches, Louisiana; Marion, Alabama; Leetown,
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West Virginia; and Welaka, Florida. He specialized in the fi eld of research propagation of warm water fi sh, with particular reference to the development of methods and the related use of fertilizers. He published a paper in the Journal of Wildlife Management on a Symposium on Farm Fish Ponds and Management, among others relating to fi sh culture and fertilization. Lloyd was appointed as chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of Game-Fish and Hatcheries by the Director, Ira N. Gabrielson, in September, 1945. He had been assistant chief of the division since June, 1942. He lived in Saint Petersburg, Florida, after his retirement. He died on September 1, 1985. Lloyd was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1949.
JOHN CAMPBELL MERRIAM John was born on October 20, 1869, in Hopkinton, Iowa. He was the son of Charles Edward and Margaret Campbell Merriam. John married Ada Gertrude Little on December 22, 1896, having three children: Lawrence Campbell, Charles Warren, and Malcolm Landers. After the death of his fi rst wife, he married Margaret Louise Webb on February 20, 1941. Throughout his life, he received many degrees, beginning with a BS degree from Lenox College in Iowa in 1887 and a PhD degree from the University of Munich in 1893. He also received ScD degrees from Columbia in 1921, Princeton in 1922, Yale in 1922, University of Pennsylvania in 1936, University of the State of New York in 1937, and Oregon State College in 1939, as well as LLD degrees from Wesleyan University in 1922, University of California in 1924, New York University in 1926, University of Michigan in 1933, Harvard University in 1935, George Washington University in 1937, and the University of Oregon in 1939. John spent many years working for the University of California. From 1894 to 1899, he was an instructor of paleontology and historical geology. He became an assistant professor in 1899, an associate professor in 1905, a professor in 1912, and moved into administration as dean of faculty in 1920. Outside of his work as a teacher, he belonged to and worked for many other associations. He was chairman of the National Research Council in 1919, president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington from 1920 to 1938 and president emeritus from 1939 until his death, a regent of the Smithsonian Institution starting in 1928, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and president of the Pacifi c Division from 1919 to 1920, president of the Geologic Society of America in 1910, president of the American Paleontology Society in 1917, president of the executive committee on the Pan American Institute of Geography and History from 1935 to 1938, and chairman of the research committee of the California State Council of
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Defense from 1917 to 1920. John was a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, the American Philosophers Society, the Washington Academy of the Sciences, the California Academy of the Sciences, the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association of University Professors, the Commission du Parc National Albert, the Christian Michelsens Institute of Bergen, Norway, the Cosmos Club of Washington, the Century Association of New York, the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, corresponding member of the London Zoological Society, and honorary member of the Society of Geography and History of Michoacan, Mexico. John was a prolifi c writer with over 35 major publications as well as numerous other papers on geology, paleontology, history, research, and education. He died on October 30, 1945, in Oakland, California, after a successful life as paleontologist, educator, and administrator. John was elected a member in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and awarded honorary membership in 1918.
FREDERICK GUSTAV MEYER Fred was born on December 7, 1917, in Olympia, Washington. He went to Washington State University in Pullman and earned a BS degree in 1939 and an MS degree in 1941. He received a PhD degree in botany at Washington University in St. Louis in 1949, studying the genus Valeriana. Fred was a staff sergeant in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946. He worked as a botany lab assistant from 1946 to 1949 and a dendrologist from 1949 to 1956 for the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri. He came to Washington, D.C., to work as a botanist at the New Crops Research Branch, U.S. Department of Agriculture, in Beltsville, Maryland, from 1956 to 1963, and then as the resident botanist in charge of the herbarium at the U.S. National Arboretum from 1963 until his retirement in 1991. Fred made extensive collections of living plants and herbarium specimens in the United States, western and southern Europe, Japan, Ethiopia, and South America. He personally introduced germplasm of several thousand plants to the United States, including the fi rst American introductions of numerous European and Japanese cultivars. Fred was also the fi rst modern collector to bring back wild coffee germplasm from its native range in southern Ethiopia, an important contribution to a crop plant that had become highly inbred. Fred’s extensive plant introduction work led to the award of the Frank N. Meyer (no relation!) Memorial Medal in 1982 “in recognition of distinguished service in the fi eld of plant introduction.” His research specialties included studies in Coffea and Valeriana, and ethnobotany of the archeological sites destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 AD. In 1999, he published a major work on the botany of Fuchs, a new edition of Fuch’s De Historia Stirpium, or The great herbal of Leonhart Fuchs, by Stanford University Press. With colleague, archeologist Wilhemina Jashemski, he edited a lavishly illustrated, comprehensive, multiauthored monograph on The Natural History of Pompeii published by Cambridge University Press in 2002. Fred was very active in developing the National Arboretum. His own germplasm and herbarium collections form an important part of the material, and he played a major role in acquiring outside collections, such as the Gotelli Dwarf Conifer Collection and the Isaac Martindale Herbarium. Fred also donated his large and very valuable library, which includes many rare medieval herbals.
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Fred was an accomplished pianist. He owned a grand piano and the scores of every classical sonata, many of which he could play from memory. During his high school years, he took private lessons on the saxophone. During his college years, he purchased a bass sax and played in the Washington State College band as well as other dance bands. Fred married Lillian Eugene “Jean” Nicholson on August 23, 1946. They had no children. Jean died on May 11, 1983. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1963. He served on various committees, including membership. He also was a member of the Cosmos Club and several botanical societies. Fred lived in Tacoma Park and Silver Spring, Maryland, in retirement. He died on October 13, 2006, from pneumonia that he contracted in the hospital while being treated for a bad fall in September. A memorial service was held on October 21, 2006, in the Washington National Presbyterian Church.
WILLIAM MIDDLETON William was born in 1893. He was employed as an entomologist for the Bureau of Entomology. William was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1923. He terminated his membership in 1948. We have been unable to fi nd a record on his death.
GERRIT SMITH MILLER, JR. Gerrit was born on December 6, 1869, in Peterboro, New York, to Gerrit Smith and Susan Miller. He married Elizabeth Eleanor Page in 1897, and later married Anne Chapin Gates in 1921. He attended Harvard University and received an AB degree in 1894. Gerrit, a zoologist, began by working as assistant curator of mammals in the U.S. National Museum, staying in that position from 1898 until 1909 when he became curator. In 1940, he left his position as curator and in 1941 became an associate in biology. He was a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophers Society, a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, a member of the Zoological Society of London, a member of the Cosmos Club, and a member of the Arts Club of Washington. His publications include: The Families and Genera of Bats, Catalogue of the Land Mammals of Western Europe in the British
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Museum, List of North American Land Mammals in the United States National Museum (1911), List of North American Recent Mammals (1923), as well as around 400 monographs and other contributions to scientifi c journals. Gerrit was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated his membership in 1910. Gerrit died on February 24, 1956.
SCOTT E. MILLER Scott received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and he received his PhD degree in biology from Harvard University. Scott worked at museums in California as a research associate in entomology after receiving his bachelor’s degree, including the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (1977-80) and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (1975-78). From 1986 to 1997, Scott worked in Hawaii at the University of Hawaii and at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. While at the museum, he was chair of the department of entomology from 1987 to 1993 and chair of the department of natural science from 1993 to 1997. He moved to Washington, D.C., and became supervisory research entomologist at the Natural Museum of Natural History from 1998 to 2000, during which time he was on leave as a principal scientist and program leader to the to the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi. Scott is committed to applying biodiversity information from research and collections institutions to conservation and sustainable development. He has participated in major reviews of biodiversity related to conservation planning, and catalyzed an Integrated Conservation Development Project in Kenya. A core focus in his work is catalyzing partnerships for both research and outreach. He is currently chair of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, and principal investigator of the Sloan Foundation grant that funds the secretariat. He also has helped catalyze digital library initiatives in biodiversity. He is active in national and international biodiversity and conservation organizations (e.g., Convention on Biological Diversity, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Global Invasive Species Program). Scott has had continuous National Science Foundation research funding since 1986, and maintains an active personal research program. He has published over 140 research publications in systematics, biogeography, and ecology, and co-edited the books Papua New Guinea Biological Diversity Country Study, The origin and evolution of Pacifi c island biotas, New Guinea to Eastern Polynesia: Patterns and processes, and Arthropods of tropical forests: Spatio-temporal dynamics and resource use in the canopy. Scott presently is senior program offi cer in the Offi ce of the Under Secretary for Science of the Smithsonian Institution, and curator of entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Scott was elected member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2001 and has served on the board of managers.
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STUART DOUGLAS MILLER Doug was born on October 3, 1950, in Louisville, Kentucky, where he grew up with his parents and one brother. He received his BS degree in zoology in 1972 at the Auburn University and an MS degree in wildlife biology in 1974 from Colorado State University. His master’s thesis was entitled Environmental Effects of Bitterbrush Production. Doug received a PhD degree in wildlife biology in 1979 from Auburn University with a dissertation entitled Ecology of the Bobcat in South Alabama. After graduation from Auburn he worked from 1979 to 1981 at North Carolina State University as a research associate, a visiting instructor, and a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Zoology. In 1981, Doug became an assistant unit leader of the Massachusetts Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the University of Massachusetts. In October of 1981, Doug became director of the Institute for Wildlife Research of the National Wildlife Federation, Washington, D.C., but he continued as an adjunct assistant professor for the graduate faculty of the University of Massachusetts. In 1983, Doug became vice president for the wildlife research and program development department of the Federation and served in this position until 1989 when he transferred to Alaska to become regional executive and director of the Federation’s Alaska Natural Resource Center in Anchorage. He served in this position until his premature death of brain cancer on December 12, 1992, at his home in Anchorage. Doug and his wife, Nora Lucas Miller, had two daughters, Meredith Lynn and Emily Allison Miller. Doug was an active member of many organizations including The Wildlife Society, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the American Society of Mammalogists, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Doug was selected as member of the Sigma Xi and Xi Sigma Pi honor societies and had received several other honors during his regrettably short career. Doug was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1984.
EDWARD LYMAN MORRIS Edward was born in 1870. He graduated from Amherst College in 1891. He worked with David Griffi ths in 1900 and 1901 in Nevada and Oregon. He also worked as a biologist with Washington high schools. Edward was a founding member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900. He died in 1913.
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JOSEPH PAUL ELDRED MORRISON Joe was born on December 17, 1906, to missionary parents, Robert and Lillian Eldred, in South Bend, Indiana. His parents died in the Belgian Congo and he was adopted and raised in Springfi eld, Illinois, by Hugh T. Morrison. He attended Transylvania College in Kentucky and earned a BS degree at the University of Chicago in 1926. He went on to earn an MS degree and a PhD degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1929 and 1931. He showed an early career interest in zoology and worked for the Illinois State Museum, Mount Desert Island Biological Survey, and the Wisconsin State Natural History Survey. He also taught at the State University of Wisconsin, Crane Junior College, and Kelly High School in Chicago. He worked at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, as a scientifi c aide from 1934 to 1942, assistant curator from 1942 to 1946, and associate curator from 1946 until he retired in 1975 after 41 years of service. Joe was a specialist in land, fresh water, and estuarine mollusks and worked as a malacologist for the Mollusk Department for many years. Fieldwork took him to British Guiana, Panama, the Marshall Islands, the Tuamotus Islands, New Caledonia, Dominica, Mexico, Gulf of Maine, Tennessee, and Alabama. He was an indefatigable collector of hundreds of thousands of mollusk specimens, and also specimens of birds, mammals, fi shes, reptiles, insects, and other invertebrates. He published over 100 papers and he and his collaborators named over 175 taxa. His major contributions were in the systematics of Unionidae, a family of fresh-water bivalves. Joe also was a tinkerer and inventor. He designed a number of aids in capturing specimens including a collapsible funnel fi sh trap and a folding mussel bar (for which he held a patent). He also worked on obtaining guns and ammunition to be used by vertebrate zoologists in the Smithsonian and Fish and Wildlife Service for collecting specimens. Alexander Wetmore especially liked his 32 caliber shot shells for small birds. Joe worked with Alexander Wetmore in the Pearl Islands in Panama in 1944 and Dr. Wetmore named a subspecies of the wood rail, Aramides cajanea, from there after him. Joe always boasted about collecting dragon fl ies on the wing with dust shot. During World War II he created an experimental 30 caliber M1 carbine collecting outfi t as part of a survival kit for servicemen. He really liked to collect animals and he would recall what gauge shotgun and what size shot he used to collect each specimen. He was an offi cer or editor of several biological societies including the American Malacologists Union, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the National Capital Shell Club, and the Biological Society of Washington. He was a member of the Society of Systematic Zoologists, the National Rifl e Association, the National Speleological Association, Sigma Xi, and Phi Sigma. Joe was unable to enlist in the military service in World War II as he wanted to when a brother was killed in Pearl Harbor, but the Smithsonian loaned him to the Army for work in Panama for testing the proximity fuse, poison gas, and captured Japanese gas masks. He also participated in the study of the biological effects of radioactive fallout from the atomic bomb in the Marshall Islands on Bikini, Eniwetok,
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Rongelap, and Rongerik Atolls. Joe was probably the fi rst scientist on Bikini Island in 1946, and returned in 1947 as part of a resurvey team. After retirement, he made few visits to the Smithsonian or to Plummers Island because poor health curtailed his activities. Joe died on December 2, 1983, of a heart attack in Key West, Florida, just short of 77 years old. He and his wife Dorothy were married for 54 years and had two daughters, a son, seven grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1946.
EUGENE SILLER MORTON Gene was born on November 25, 1940, near Cleveland, Ohio. He grew up in Rocky River, a suburb of Cleveland and was horrifi ed as the fi elds and forests he happily wandered through were destroyed by “development.” An early interest in raising butterfl ies turned into identifying natural sounds and birds by elementary school age. He received a BS degree in biology from Denison University and a PhD degree from Yale in evolutionary biology following short stints at the University of the Pacifi c and Cornell University. At Cornell, he was associated with the Library of Natural Sounds and was called upon to travel to Panama to identify natural sounds under a General Electric Company contract with the U.S. Army. This began a lifelong tropical research career, beginning with pre- and postdoctoral fellowships at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute studying the acoustics of habitats and later migratory bird behavioral ecology, frugivory, and breeding systems in tropical birds. After a fi nal postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, Gene began his professional career as an animal behaviorist at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1972. He moved to the Department of Zoological Research at the National Zoological Park in 1974 while remaining an adjunct at the University of Maryland. During this decade, Gene published on avian communication, frugivory, and migratory birds and also on Odonata of Panama. He organized a conference on migratory birds in 1978 and co-edited the proceedings, Migrant Birds in the Neotropics, with Alan Keast through the Smithsonian Press. Other books include Lords of the Air: the Smithsonian Book of Birds (1990), with Jake Page; Animal Talk: Science and the Voices of Nature (1993), also with Jake Page; and Animal Vocal Communication: a New Approach (1998) with D. H. Owings. In 2001, he published a book, entitled The Behavioral Ecology of Neotropical Birds, which he coauthored with Bridget Stutchbury. In 1995, Gene was recognized for his avian research by the American Ornithologists’ Union by receiving its Brewster Award for outstanding research in the last 10 years. He was one of the fi rst to use DNA fi ngerprinting to determine the evolutionary origins of colonial breeding in the purple martin, and has continued to test the idea that temperate zone birds have high rates of extra-pair behavior due to high breeding synchrony induced by the short breeding season there and, therefore, afford rather atypical models of avian biology. The demise of Gene’s youthful environment has led to active deterrence of over development whenever possible. He was awarded the conservationist of the year award by the Severn River Association for his efforts to save marshes along that waterway. He continues his graduate school interest in curbing human population growth as the most important endeavor of the 21st Century. He served on the boards of the Severn River Land Trust and the Maryland Chapter of The Nature Conservancy until moving to the Conservation and Research
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Center in Front Royal, Virginia, in 1996. Gene and Bridget were married in 1995 and they have two children, Douglas who is 10, and Sarah who is 8. Gene retired from the Smithsonian in 2005 and now operates the Hemlock Hill Field Station in Pennsylvania and is an adjunct professor at York University in Toronto, Canada, where Bridget is a professor. Gene was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1980. He served as chair of the membership committee and was on the governing board. His research on the decline of the Kentucky warbler in the Potomac Valley was supported by a grant from the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1982.
GEORGE SPRAGUE MYERS George was born on February 2, 1905, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He developed an early interest in vertebrate zoology, accumulating aquaria in which he kept numerous species of exotic and native fi shes. At the age of 15 he published his fi rst article on aquarium fi shes. Around this time he frequented the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where he sought advice on natural history questions and became a volunteer assistant from 1922 to 1924. George worked as a part-time curatorial assistant for Carl Eigenmann at Indiana University from 1924 to 1926. He continued his ichthyological studies at Stanford University with an assistantship under David Starr Jordan in the Natural History Museum. He received a BA degree in 1930, an MA degree in 1931, and a PhD degree in 1933 from Stanford University. His dissertation was entitled The Classifi cation of Cyprinodont Fishes, with a Discussion of the Geographical Distribution of the Cyprinodontidae of the World. In 1933, George began his career with the U.S. National Museum, where he was appointed assistant curator in charge of the division of fi shes. His four-year tenure there was marked by fi scal constraints brought on by the depression, forcing him to conduct clerical jobs which limited his research time. In 1936, George returned to Stanford, where he accepted an appointment as an associate professor of biology and head curator of zoological collections. In 1938, he advanced to professor and remained in that position until statutory retirement in 1970. From 1942 to 1944, George served as a special professor of ichthyology at the Museo National, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Between 1970 and 1972, he served as Henry Bryant Bigelow Visiting Professor of Ichthyology and the Alexander Agassiz Visiting Professor of Zoology at Harvard University. George was associate editor of The Aquarium from 1932 to 1960, founder and editor of the Stanford Ichthyological Bulletin from 1938 to 1967, and managing editor of the Aquarium Journal from 1952 to 1954. He also was an active member of numerous committees and councils. George was married to Martha Ruth Frisinger in 1926 and they had two sons; Thomas Sprague and John William. He was subsequently married to Irma Anne Block Zimmerman (1957) and Frances Edna Felin (1966). George was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1935 and remained an active member throughout his life. He lived in Scotts Valley, California, after his retirement in 1970. He died on November 4, 1985, four months after the death of his wife Frances.
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ARNOLD LARS NELSON Arnold was born in Ironwood, Michigan, on February 11, 1907. He grew up in a large family: his parents, four brothers, and four sisters. He was raised in a rural area within easy reach by horse and buggy of the shores of Lake Superior and its pristine fi sh resources of lake trout and herring. His home was on a small farm not far from a spring-fed brook that supported a trout population. He lived only a short bike ride away from extensive cutover lands with lots of raspberries, abundant deer, ruffed grouse, snowshoe rabbits, and more. He remembered shooting his fi rst ruffed grouse when he was 12 years old. After graduating from high school in 1924, he pursued his education at the University of Michigan, where he received a BS degree in biology in 1928. He taught biology and general science in the public schools of Fordson (now Dearborn), Michigan, for two and one half years. Then on February 16, 1931, he moved to Washington, D.C., for a career in the Bureau of Biological Survey (later Fish and Wildlife Service) starting out as a junior biologist with varied assignments, including studies on the food habits of birds and investigations of complaints against birds. Early on, he became involved with what was an emerging concept: multiple uses of public lands. During World War II, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s headquarters was moved to Chicago. At that time Arnold was transferred to the Patuxent Research Refuge where, in 1945, he was appointed assistant chief of the Division of Wildlife Research having broad responsibility for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s research programs in the eastern United States. Then, in 1949, when all activities at the Patuxent Research Refuge were centralized under a single leadership, he became the Refuge’s fi rst director. The Refuge later became the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. One of the early functions of the Bureau of Biological Survey was to investigate the economic importance of birds in the control of agricultural insect pests. Since 1885, the Bureau had accumulated much information on the food habits of birds and mammals. As director of the Patuxent Research Refuge, Arnold saw the need to bring this accumulated information into print to achieve its wider use. This need was met when Arnold directed preparation of a manuscript for a comprehensive guide to wildlife food habits, under the title American Wildlife and Plants. This intensive and extensive work was done in collaboration with Alexander C. Martin, a biologist on the Refuge staff, and Herbert O. Zim, associate professor of education, University of Illinois. It was published in 1951 as a 500-page hardcover book by McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. In 1961, it was republished in an unabridged edition, by Dover Publications, Inc. It was republished in Canada by General Publishing Company Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, and in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., London. The book became a classic in its fi eld. In 1959, Arnold received the Department of Interior’s Gold Medal and Distinguished Service Award “in recognition of more than 28 years of outstanding service.” In his fi nal four years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arnold capped off his career with the government by serving as managing editor of two far-reaching books on birds, Waterfowl Tomorrow, a 770-page hardcover volume, and Birds in Our Lives,
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a 561-page hardcover book. These works were cooperative ventures made possible by 164 authors from the United States and Canada contributing their time, talent, and expertise writing assignments for books on specifi c topics, for which they were well qualifi ed by training and fi eld experience. Both books were well received by the media and the public. The editor of Waterfowl Tomorrow was Joseph P. Linduska, formerly employed on the staff of the Patuxent Research Refuge. The well known Alfred Stefferud served as editor of Birds in Our Lives. The books were enhanced by many photographs, generously contributed by wildlife photographers from coast to coast. Waterfowl Tomorrow was distributed throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In Canada it was available from the Queens Printer, Ottawa, Canada. A paperback edition of Birds in Our Lives was published in 1970 by Arco Publishing Co., Inc., New York. Arnold married his college sweetheart, Ruth Morris, also a biologist, on December 24, 1930, when the country was in the throes of the greatest depression it ever has had. They had four children; two sons and two daughters, four grandchildren, and fi ve great grandchildren. In 1932, Arnold was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, and served as secretary from 1934 to 1944. He was awarded honorary membership in 1970. He has treasured his membership, and has fond memories of many outings at Plummers Island, often with Fran Uhler. He vividly recalls one trip with him. It was a warm spring day when the twinleaf was in full bloom on the Island. It was a day picked out by Fran to bury the ashes of Dr. A. K. Fisher beside a twinleaf fl ower as he had requested. It was a sad moment, but deep down it was a satisfying one, knowing that a friend was carrying out the wish of a good friend. In retirement, Arnold was active by always having a project to work on. He and his wife found the time to travel quite widely in the United States and Canada and made it a point to keep in close touch with family members. Arnold died on June 27, 2007, in Needham, Massachusetts. His wife of over 76 years died just 11 days later.
EDWARD WILLIAM NELSON Edward was born in Amoskeag, New Hampshire, on May 8, 1855. The Nelsons lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, until his father joined the Union Army and his mother went to Baltimore to be a nurse. Edward and his brother then went to live with their maternal grandparents in the northern Adirondack Mountains in Franklin County, New York. He attended a one-room rural school, learned to live the hard frontier life and to enjoy the newly discovered, uncultivated land with its wealth of wildlife. His father was killed near the end of the Civil War and the family moved to Chicago, where his mother established a successful dressmaking business and Edward entered school in 1868. Edward enjoyed collecting biological specimens in the big country town and roamed the shores of Lake Michigan. The Chicago fi re of 1871 destroyed their home, business, and Edward’s insect collection. Edward attended Cook County Normal School from 1872 to 1875 and made his fi rst collecting trip at the age of 17 to Utah, Nevada, and California, and had the good fortune to meet Henry Henshaw and E. D. Cope. He continued his interest in natural history while teaching in Dalton, Illinois, from 1875 to 1876, but found fi eld explorations more exciting than classroom lectures. He went to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., but failed to get employment there. Through the help of Henshaw, Baird, and Ridgway, however, he was accepted as a weather observer for assignment in Alaska,
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and he sailed from San Francisco in April 1877. Although the major objective was to obtain meteorologic observations, secondary objectives were “to obtain all the information possible on the geography, ethology, and zoology of the surrounding region.” Being a careful, thorough, tenacious, and sometime stubborn worker, Edward did all those things! With headquarters in St. Michael and with the assistance of native Eskimos, dog sleds, and kayaks, he explored from 1877 to 1881 areas where Caucasians had not traveled. Many of his biological collections and ethological observations were new to the scientifi c world. At the conclusion of his explorations in Alaska, Edward returned to Washington, D.C., to prepare his specimens and to write his report. He developed tuberculosis, but enjoyed recovery as he traveled around the city studying birds from a horse and buggy with his colleague Henry Henshaw. But for six years in the late 1880s, Edward had to stay in Arizona, while his mother nursed him back to health. Although he recovered from tuberculosis, he was considered a “one-lunger” and had a heart ailment for the remainder of his life. In 1890 and 1891, Edward accompanied C. Hart Merriam, A. K. Fisher, and V. O. Bailey on the famous Death Valley Expedition, in the newly created Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Edward pioneered into Yosemite Valley and is considered the fi rst person to take a pack train down the Yosemite and Merced Rivers. Edward’s California explorations were followed by extensive trips throughout Mexico with E. A. Goldman from 1892 to 1906. Despite his physical disabilities, he ascended the 12 highest peaks in remote areas and also worked in every state in Mexico and on all coastal islands. Although he lived among the indigenous people, he did not write about them as he had done in Alaska, but wrote extensively about the small mammals of Mexico and Central America. From 1908 to 1930, Edward conducted hardly any fi eld trips, except for administrative purposes and was promoted from chief naturalist, to assistant chief, to eventually becoming the third chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey. During this period he was instrumental in the negotiations for the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act, and the Alaska Game Law, all of which gave better protection for migratory birds. Edward received an honorary MA degree from Yale and an honorary DSc degree from George Washington University, both in 1920. Edward published over 200 articles on many subjects and was a member of many scientifi c organizations, including being president of the American Ornithologists’ Union, the Biological Society of Washington, and the American Society of Mammalogists. He had numerous species and sub-species that were named for him. Edward was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1904. He was awarded an honorary membership in 1929. Edward never married and devoted his whole life to science as an observer, collector, and recorder. He died on May 19, 1934.
HARVEY KENNETH NELSON
Harvey was born on January 29, 1925, in Barrett, Minnesota. His family lived on a farm and his father also worked for the Great Northern Railroad. They later moved to Evansville, Minnesota, where he graduated from high school in 1941. He developed an early interest in wildlife while hunting and trapping in the vicinity of his home town, and became indoctrinated in hunting canvasback ducks on the famous Lake Christina nearby. This stimulated his interest in waterfowl and wetlands. He served in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacifi c during World War II, 1943-45. Harvey returned to the University of Minnesota where he received a BS degree in zoology and fi sh and wildlife management in 1950. He received an MS degree in natural resources conservation from Michigan State University in 1957. In 1992, he was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by North Dakota State University. He also participated in two senior management training programs under the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., with scholarships in public administration at George Washington University, and is a graduate of the Federal
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Executive Institute at Charlottesville, Virginia. He joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge in 1950. Initially he was assigned to work on early wetland studies and waterfowl surveys. He later worked on several national wildlife refuges in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan. In 1957, he transferred to the Regional Offi ce in Minneapolis where he served as assistant regional refuge supervisor. Following an assignment with the Division of Wildlife Research in Washington, D.C., in 1963, he was appointed director of the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center then being established at Jamestown, North Dakota. He held that position until 1974, when he transferred to Washington, D.C., to serve as associate director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. As associate director for Fish and Wildlife Resources, he supervised the operation of some of the Service’s major programs, including the national wildlife refuge system, national fi sh hatcheries, wildlife law enforcement, migratory bird management, and animal damage control. In 1980, he was appointed regional director for the North Central Region, with bureaus in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. He was responsible for administering agency programs in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. In December 1987, he was appointed to the newly established position of executive director for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. He was responsible for coordinating the organization and implementation of the Plan in the United States, Canada, and Mexico during the fi rst fi ve years of the program. He retired from that position in February 1992, with more than 41 years of government service. Harvey held appointments as adjunct professor of zoology at the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University. He is a member of The Wildlife Society and is a certifi ed wildlife biologist. He is an elected member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and has held various offi ces in several professional, fraternal, and civic organizations. He is the author or co-author of more than 90 technical publications. Following retirement, Harvey established a private consulting business and continued to work with natural resource agencies, organizations, and private corporations. He also served as a special consultant to the Minnesota Waterfowl Association. He served on the board of directors for the Trumpeter Swan Society, Wood Duck Society, Minnesota Outdoor Heritage Alliance, and the Deep Portage Conservation Foundation, an Environmental Education Center near Hackensack, Minnesota. He chaired the Predation Avian Recruitment Task Force established by the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies under the Berryman Institute at Utah State University from 1995 to 2001. Harvey received the Department of the Interior’s Meritorious Service Award in 1980 for his leadership of Service Programs. In 1986, he received the Department’s Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor bestowed on employees by the Secretary of Interior. In 1987, he received the President’s Award as a Meritorious Senior Executive. He was presented the Professional Award of Merit by the North Central Section of The Wildlife Society in 1987. In 1992, Harvey was presented the Minnesota Award by the Minnesota Chapter of The Wildlife Society for outstanding contributions to the wildlife management profession. In 1992, he also received an Award of Appreciation from the Canadian Wildlife Service for his dedication to international cooperation. Harvey was presented the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America for his work with the Red River Valley Council and in 1991 received the William T. Hornaday Gold Medal Award for contributions to scouting and national conservation programs. In 1994, he was presented the International Canvasback Award by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan Committee for his leadership in development and implementation of that international program. During September 1996, a 600 acre wetland/grassland tract near his home town of Evansville, Minnesota, was dedicated in his honor for his lifelong work with waterfowl and wetlands. He was
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the second recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Minnesota Waterfowl Association at their Annual Meeting during February 1997. He was named Man of the Year for 2000 by Minnesota Outdoor News. Harvey was married to Gene Christenson of Hackensack, Minnesota, in 1947. They have four children and three grandchildren. Harvey was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1975 and was an active participant while residing in the Washington area. He continued to attend spring and fall outings at Plummers Island after retirement as travel permitted from his residence in Bloomington, Minnesota.
ROBERT DWAIN NELSON Bob was born on January 22, 1933, in Menlo, Washington. He grew up fi shing, trapping, and hunting. Bob served in the U.S. Navy from 1950 to 1955. He received an associates in science degree in 1957 from Grays Harbor College in Aberdeen, Washington, and BS and MS degrees in wildlife biology in 1959 and 1962 from Washington State University, Pullman, Washington. Bob began his career as a forest biologist from 1960 to 1963, an assistant district ranger for the Umatilla National Forest from 1963 to 1966, and a district ranger at the Wenatchee National Forest from 1966 to 1967. He moved to Portland, Oregon, where he worked for the Northwest Region of the Forest Service as a range and wildlife specialist from 1967 to 1969, regional wildlife biologist from 1969 to 1970, and range administrative branch chief from 1970 to 1975. During 1975 to 1980, Bob was director of wildlife and fi sheries staff of the Pacifi c Southwest Region of the Forest Service in San Francisco, California. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1985 to assume the position of director of the wildlife and fi sheries staff of the Forest Service in the National Offi ce. One of Bob’s most notable achievements was the Forest Service’s Challenge Cost-Share program that provides non-federal partners the opportunity to share in shaping, funding, and implementing wildlife and fi sh habitat management on National Forest System lands. Since that program was initiated in 1986, it has grown each year and by 1994, a $13 million federal investment was matched by contributions totaling $19.4 million by almost 3,000 partners. This program and numerous other partnerships and initiatives including “Taking Wing” with Ducks Unlimited, “Making Tracks” with the National Wild Turkey Federation, and “Eyes on Wildlife” for wildlife viewing have advanced wildlife management to the mainstream of the Forest Service. Under Bob’s leadership as director of Wildlife, Fish, and Rare Plants, the program became one of the strongest in the National Forest System. That strength was attributed to Bob’s strategic approach to planning and issue management, and his successful efforts to involve leaders of conservation groups and state wildlife and fi sheries
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agencies in shaping program direction. During his leadership period, the wildlife and fi sheries budget increased from $28.5 million to almost $100 million, the number of professional biologists increased from 640 to about 1,250, and programs expanded from primarily habitat protection to habitat restoration and enhancement of opportunities for the use and enjoyment of wildlife resources. Bob was honored with numerous awards by the Forest Service and several organizations, including The Wildlife Society’s Trippensee-McPherson Award, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ “Ernest Thompson Seton Award,” and a Partners in Flight Award. Bob also received the Gulf Conservation Award in 1982, and he was the fi rst recipient of the Lloyd W. Swift Award in 2000, “for a lifetime of leadership commitment and dedication to the wildlife and fi sheries resources of the United States.” Bob received the prestigious Aldo Leopold Award of The Wildlife Society in 1996, and some of the comments in support of his nomination identifi ed him as “the perfect example ... that there is no limit to what can be accomplished if you don’t worry about who gets the credit.” Another credited all of Bob’s accomplishments and benefi ts to the profession to his “strong land ethic - just what Aldo Leopold believed in and stood for.” Bob is a member of Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and honorary life member of The Wildlife Society. Bob was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1985. Bob is retired from government service and presently lives in Raymond, Washington, with his wife, Midge. Their son, Bob, lives in Washington and daughters Laurinda and Katy live in California. They have six grandchildren, Travis, Aaron, John, Gina, Jason, and Rob, and two great grandsons, Joe and Gabe.
WILFORD OSMOND NELSON, JR. Bill was born on August 21, 1921, in American Fork, Utah. Following in his father’s footsteps, he became an employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Bill attended Brigham Young University and graduated in wildlife management from Utah State University. He was a veteran of World War II, leaving the military as a First Lieutenant. Except for short summer work with the U.S. Forest Service, Bill spent his entire career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He began his career working on a cooperative antelope recovery program between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the State of Utah on the West Desert in Utah. Bill served as assistant state supervisor for Arizona; opened an offi ce in Manhattan, Kansas; and became state supervisor for Oklahoma and Kansas in Oklahoma City. He later became a regional supervisor in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He moved to Washington, D.C., and was appointed assistant division chief. One of the highlights of living in Washington, D.C., was being elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1963, meeting the distinguished members, and feasting on the delicious food. Many enjoyable times were spent on the Island with his family. Bill spent his last ten years working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the regional director for the Southwest Region with headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He helped pioneer the whooping crane recovery project between Grays Lake, Idaho, and the Bosque del Apache Refuge in New Mexico. Also during these years, he completed the residential course at the Federal Executive Institute at Charlottesville, Virginia, as a member of the Senior Executive Service. Bill was appointed chairman of the Federal Executive Board
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for New Mexico by President Gerald Ford in a White House ceremony in 1976. Bill was a leader in hiring minorities and women into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For example, he hired the fi rst female federal law enforcement agent in Houston, Texas. With the inspiration of her father, Bill’s eldest daughter became the fi rst female district manager of the Bureau of Land Management. Bill married JoEllen Richins during World War II, while on a furlough in 1942. They have three daughters, fi ve grandsons, and one great granddaughter. After retiring in Albuquerque in 1980, Bill and his wife JoEllen moved to Twin Falls, Idaho, to be close to their grandchildren. Bill’s wife JoEllen died on May 9, 2001. They were married for almost 59 years. Bill has been a non-resident member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club since he left the Washington, D.C., area and lives in Twin Falls, Idaho.
DAN HENRY NICOLSON Dan was born on September 5, 1933, in Kansas City, Missouri. He grew up in Shenandoah, Iowa, where his parents ran the Henry Field’s Seed & Nursery Co. They also had a summer home in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. He graduated from Grinnell College and published his fi rst paper on the milkweeds of Iowa with his botany teacher in 1955. He went to Stanford University and received an MBA degree in 1957, working as assistant in the Dudley Herbarium. Dan worked with George Lawrence in the Bailey Hortorium of Cornell University and earned an MS degree in 1959 and a PhD degree in 1964. In August 1959, Dan married Alice Black Crawford, and they went to the Montreal Botanical Congress for their honeymoon. The next year they left for two years of thesis fi eld work in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. John was born in late 1960 in Manila on the way out and Sally was born early in 1962 in Beirut (4th generation of Ally’s family born in the Middle East). In 1964, Dan was hired by the Smithsonian Institution (by A. C. Smith, then assistant secretary) to fi ll the vacancy left by Dick Cowan who had been promoted to assistant director of the Museum of Natural History. The fi rst year he went to the American Institute of Biological Science meetings, attended the Edinburgh Botanical Congress, spent three months collecting on Dominica, and their third child, David, was born. As the junior staff member he was put in charge of Moving Arrangements and Space Assignments and organized the department’s move in 1965 from the “Castle” to new quarters on the 4th and 5th fl oors of the new West Wing of the Natural History Building. In 1969 he organized the Herbarium Services Unit. In 1966, Dan went collecting in Nepal for a year as a Senior Fulbright Fellow. From 1968 to 1974, he spent three months each year in Bangalore working with Father C. J. Saldanha on the fl ora of the Hassan District. In 1979, he was in Sri Lanka for a month of collecting Araceae (published in 1987) and in 1983 he collected in Yunnan for three months. Dan’s work falls into three areas: (1) monographic work in Araceae (knowing a lot about little), (2) fl oristic work (knowing little about a lot), and (3), nomenclature (knowing a lot about nothing).
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In 2005, Dan was awarded the Stafl eu Medal by the International Association for Plant Taxomony in Vienna for the 2004 729 page book The Forsters and the Botany of the Second Cook Voyage (1772-1775). The Forsters’ publications, particularly George’s, underlie Pacifi c botany. Dan wrote (or was co-writer) of over 200 publications, several that are over 100 pages in length. Dan was regional treasurer for the International Association for Plant Taxonomy since Dick Cowan retired in 1985. He has served the Association in many capacities, including nomenclature editor of their journal, Taxon, from 1979 to 1999, member of the editorial committee for the Code ongoing since 1981, acting vice president (again fi lling in for Dick Cowan, from 1985 to 1987), secretary of the general committee from 1987 to 2000, vice president from 1987 to 1993, and president from 1993 to 1999. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1975 and served as treasurer from 1981 to 1997, and chair of the fi nance committee from 1997 to 2001.
ARNOLD WILLIAM NORDEN Arnold, “Butch” to his friends and colleagues, was born on December 20, 1945, in Baltimore, Maryland. He grew up in the city, attending the local public schools. Despite spending his early life in an urbanized setting, he demonstrated a strong interest in natural history, an interest that was solidly supported and encouraged by his parents. At that time, Baltimore offered many things of interest to a budding naturalist, like the Baltimore Zoo, the old Maryland Academy of Sciences, and the Natural History Society of Maryland. In addition, searching fragments of undeveloped habitat near Fort McHenry and in other areas of south Baltimore still revealed such critters as leopard frogs, green snakes, fi ve-lined skinks, and painted and box turtles. Later on, a ride to Catonsville on the last trolley line in Baltimore gave access to “big game,” milk snakes and copperheads in dens along railroad cuts above the Patapsco River. That was more than enough to keep Butch interested, and the snakes in the basement eventually led to a BS degree in biology in 1974, and an MS degree in ecology in 1978, both from Towson University. His initial interest in biology was centered around reptiles and amphibians, and cold-blooded vertebrates continued to fascinate Butch throughout his undergraduate period. However, when the time came to choose a topic for his MS degree research, Butch shifted to aquatic invertebrates. That change resulted from the discovery of some large and interesting planarians in a spring in western Maryland. A subsequent trip to the Smithsonian Institution brought those specimens to the attention of Roman Kenk, who determined that they belonged to a species previously not known from anywhere near Maryland. Dr. Kenk suggested a survey of the freshwater triclad planarians of Maryland since very little was known about their distribution in the area, which became Butch’s MS degree thesis. Other Smithsonian zoologists who infl uenced Butch were Tom Bowman (aquatic isopods), Alexander Wetmore (fossil birds), Horton Hobbs (crayfi sh and entocytherid ostracods), and Karl Krombein (wasps and bees). The latter three scientists were active members of the Washington Biologists’ Field
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Club, and sparked an early interest in the Club and Plummers Island. One day in 1984, when his wife Beth needed some quiet time to grade papers, it was suggested that Butch and the kids (Heather and John) go somewhere else for awhile. They explored a local clay quarry for dinosaur bones, and discovered a nearly intact femur of what later became Maryland’s offi cial state dinosaur, Astrodon johnstoni. That femur, nearly fi ve feet in length, turned out to be the largest dinosaur bone found in the Eastern United States (now housed in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History). His interest in fossils led to Butch being appointed in 1992 to the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Promoting Paleontology in Maryland. Butch began his professional career as an ecologist with a civil engineering fi rm in Baltimore, developing environmental impact statements for major transportation and development projects. That position resulted in extensive experience with state and federal regulatory processes, with a scattering of practical engineering thrown in. In 1983, Butch left the private sector and accepted a position with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, new Maryland Natural Heritage Program. Butch now serves as central region chief of the resource planning unit for the Department of Natural Resources. Butch has long been a member of the Natural History Society of Maryland, and served for many years as its vice president and a member of the board of trustees. Between 1930 and 1960, that organization published a fi ne local natural history journal. Butch always lamented its demise, and was responsible for its resurrection in 1987. From 1987 to 1999, he served as editor and full production staff for The Maryland Naturalist. Butch was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1994 and has served as chair of the house and grounds committee from 1997 to 2006 and on the board of managers from 2005 to 2006.
BETH MARY BALL NORDEN Snow, milk, and beer are three items for which Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is famous. But there is a lesser known gem native to that city. On a very cold and icy day, January 31, 1952, Beth Ball ventured forth into the world. And thus, began a tradition of less than optimal timing. She grew up the consummate tomboy in spite of her mother having been a professional ballerina. Everything about natural history fascinated her, and to her mother’s horror, she often collected insects in old cigar boxes. Neighboring woods, fi elds, pastures, and ponds were her teachers and playgrounds. Unfortunately, this was during a time when “nice girls” didn’t play with bugs! Nevertheless, she survived, and even thrived, obtaining a BS degree in 1974 in environmental education (a major she helped create at Towson University). However, she never made it to undergraduate commencement, because on June 1st, graduation day, she and Arnold (Butch) Norden were married. Having met her husband in a botany class just might have sparked her passion for studying pollination ecology. She went on to earn an MS degree in biology in 1979 with a thesis devoted to the biology of ground-nesting bees. However, yet again, she missed her graduation ceremony due to an obligation to her science teaching position in the Maryland public school system. While Beth loved teaching, she could not deny her growing passion for stinging insects. Persuaded by Butch to pursue her interests in entomology research, Beth enrolled at the University of Maryland and began part-time work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bioenvironmental Bee Lab. Within her fi rst year, daughter Heather (note botanical name) was born. Although a welcome surprise, the timing created a few diffi culties. Happily, a Department of Agriculture Small Farm’s Grant was obtained in support of Beth’s
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cucurbit pollination research. And then, a year later, she was awarded a Smithsonian pre-doctoral fellowship in entomology. However, being a Smithsonian Fellow, and conducting melon pollination experiments caused her no end of bad jokes, for Beth was again with child. She went into labor in a cantaloupe fi eld on Maryland’s Eastern shore and was lucky to make it back to College Park for son John’s arrival (note NO botanical name). Her PhD degree was conferred in 1985, during a ceremony she actually attended with her parents, husband, and children. Was her timing getting better? Beth accepted employment with the Smithsonian’s Department of Entomology. And as Heather and John have grown and matured, so too has Beth’s understanding of aculeate Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants) and their often complex relationships with plants. Her roots in education probably compelled her writing of two award winning children’s books: The Bee (1991, Gold Design Award) and Magnifi cation (1993, Children’s Book Choice Award). From 1996 to 1997 she was selected for a Fulbright Senior Research Grant. This funding was used to travel to Sri Lanka with Butch and their melon patch kid to conduct research with her mentor, Karl Krombein (Washington Biologists’ Field Club member), on the myrmecophyte, Humboldtia, and various hymenopterans. While Sri Lanka is a country with an active, on-going war, fortunately none of the team was killed or even wounded (except by land leeches). Her timing had certainly improved. Beth was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1996, and in the process, she and Butch made Club history by holding the fi rst husband/wife memberships. She is now convinced of two things -- fi rst, that with age one’s timing improves, and second, that “nice women” do play with bugs! Postscript: In August 2000 while working in Amazonian Brazil, Beth contracted Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. While she was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time (the path of a virulent mosquito) she did make it back to Georgetown Hospital in time to survive. Timing is everything when “nice ladies” play with bugs!
JAMES NEWCOME NORRIS, IV Jim was born on September 8, 1942, and raised in Santa Barbara, California, where he developed strong interests in the outdoors. Following his naturalist tendencies, he completed a BA degree in 1968 in biology at the then San Francisco State College, an MA degree in 1971 in marine biology at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories of San Francisco State University, and a PhD degree in 1975 in marine botany at the University of California at Santa Barbara. From 1972 to 1974, he was station director and resident marine biologist at the Laboratorio de Biología Marina of the University of Arizona and Universidad de Sonora at Puerto Peñasco, Sonora. He was a research scientist and curator of the algae collection (U.S. National Herbarium) in the Botany Section, Department of Systematic Biology, National Museum of Natural History from August 1975 to 2002 with research in the biodiversity and ecology of marine algae. Jim held many positions as adjunct professor: at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (1997-present), the University of Hawaii (1987-2002), and George Mason University (1983-2002). He is also a research associate at Bishop Museum in Hawaii (1985-2002) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1982-2002). From 1980 to 1988 he managed the Smithsonian Tropical Algal Ecology Research Program that produced four PhD theses. He has served in many capacities in the Museum’s Senate of Scientists, including the chair in 1992 and chair of the Smithsonian Congress of Scholars from 1997 to 2002.
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He has served as member of the editorial boards of the journal Cryptogamic Botany (1990-97) and Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (1997-2002). With strong interests in education and the training of students, he served as principal or outside advisor to 25 graduate students as well as worked with researchers from all over the world, and has published over 85 research studies. Aside from his phycological interests, he is a member of the nominating and voting panel for candidate selections and inductions to the Motorsports (Museum) Hall of Fame (1990-2002), an assistant scoutmaster (1990-2002), and manager of a junior development mountain bike racing team (1990-2002). Fieldwork has taken him over many parts of the globe, mostly Baja California, Pacifi c Mexico, the Galapagos, Belize, Panama, Hawaii, Florida, and the Bahamas. Perhaps the most dramatic fi eld work occurred in 1986 while SCUBA diving off Hainan Island (China) when a fi sherman illegally using dynamite set off an explosion near him. He is married to Katina Elizabeth Bucher, a biologist and Smithsonian research collaborator, who has participated on numerous fi eld expeditions and published several papers. They have two children, James Alexander and Shaun William. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1980 and has served on the research and house and grounds committees.
ELLIOTT ALBERT NORSE Elliot was born in Brooklyn New York in 1947, and became interested in marine biology at a very early age. He decided to become an ichthyologist in 1952, began snorkeling in 1955, and scuba diving in 1963. After receiving his BS degree in biology from Brooklyn College and his PhD degree in tropical marine ecology from the University of Southern California in 1975, he became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Iowa. He then worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, the Ecological Society of America, The Wilderness Society, and The Ocean Conservancy. He founded the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Bellevue, Washington, in 1996. The Institute is a nonprofi t, tax-exempt organization dedicated to advancing the science of marine conservation biology and securing protection for ocean ecosystems, with offi ces in Bellevue, Washington, Glen Ellen, California, and Washington, D. C. Elliott serves as president of the Institute. Elliott has more than 140 publications in the scientifi c, policy and popular literature. He was senior author of the 1980 Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality chapter that fi rst defi ned the concept of conserving biological diversity, which has since become the driving force in conservation worldwide. His book, Conserving Biological Diversity in Our National Forests (The Wilderness Society, 1986), provided the scientifi c basis for the Forest Service to incorporate biodiversity concerns into forest management, and was the origin of the three-level defi nition of biological diversity most widely used today. His Ancient Forests of the Pacifi c Northwest (Island Press, 1990) was a major source for Bush and Clinton Administration offi cials deliberating the spotted owl/ancient forest issue. His Global Marine Biological Diversity: A Strategy for Building Conservation into Decision Making (Island Press, 1993) is the most widely cited book on marine conservation. His latest book, Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea’s Biodiversity with co-editor Larry Crowder (Island Press, 2005), is the fi rst textbook in this new multidisciplinary fi eld.
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Elliott has fi eld experience in 21 states of the United States and in 11 other countries, was a founding life member of the Society for Conservation Biology, and served as president of its Marine Section. He was chosen to write the biodiversity article in the World Book Encyclopedia and served on the National Research Council’s Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change. Elliott is listed in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and Who’s Who in the World, received the Evergreen Award for his dedication to preserving the quality of life in Washington, and received the Pew Fellows Award in Marine Conservation. When not working with his dozen or so staff members to save life in the oceans, Elliott and his wife Irene take pleasure in wildlife gardening and watching hummingbirds in their backyard, experiencing nature and people in new places, and helping their grandchildren become who they will become. Elliott was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1988.
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PAUL HENRY OEHSER Paul was born in Cherry Creek, New York. He went to Greenville College in Illinois and graduated in 1925. He married Grace Edgbert and they raised two sons, Richard and Gordon. In 1925, Paul moved to Washington, D.C., to work as an assistant scientifi c editor for the Bureau of Biological Survey for the Agriculture Department. He worked in the editorial division of the Smithsonian Institution starting in the early 1930s and became director of the Editorial and Publications Division in 1950. From 1951 to 1966, he also served as public relations offi cer at the Smithsonian. He retired from that position in 1966, but worked as editor of scientifi c reports for the National Geographic Society until 1975. Paul was a member of the Literary Society and the Thoreau Society as well as serving on the Governing Council of the Wilderness Society. For the Cosmos Club, he was secretary, editor of the bulletin, and president at various points.
Sons of Science: The Story of the Smithsonian Institution and Its Leaders and The Smithsonian Institution, both history books, were written by him. He also wrote two books of poetry, Fifty Poems and The Witch of Scrapfaggot Green. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1949 and served as president from 1964 to 1967. He was awarded an honorary membership in 1984. Paul died of a stroke on December 4, 1986, in Boone, North Carolina.
STORRS LOVEJOY OLSON
Storrs was born on April 3, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, being named for his maternal grandfather, P. S. Lovejoy, a well-known Michigan conservationist. Storrs’s father, Franklyn C. W. Olson (1910-82), was a physical oceanographer, whose PhD dissertation was on the currents of Lake Erie. At an early age, Storrs was exposed to pickled fi sh, warbler migration, Peterson’s fi eld guide, and an assortment of biologists at the F. T. Stone Laboratory of Ohio State University on Gibraltar Island at the western end of Lake Erie. In 1950, his father accepted a job at Florida State University and his family moved to Tallahassee, where Storrs grew up and lived until 1968. Although Storrs was originally interested in fi shes and made a diverse collection of the ichthyofauna of the Florida panhandle, at age 12 his direction was changed permanently by local ornithologist Henry M. Stevenson’s invitation to participate in a Christmas bird count, in the course of which Stevenson found and collected an out-of-season prairie warbler. From that moment, the prospect of shooting birds seemed far more engaging than seining fi sh and a lifetime’s course was set. Another important infl uence during Storrs’s teens was Horace
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Loftin, then a graduate student at Florida State University working on a master’s thesis on the phenomenon of boreal shorebirds summering far from their breeding grounds. Storrs and Horace spent many exciting weekends together on the Gulf coast trapping and marking shorebirds. Subsequently, Loftin moved his family to the Panama Canal Zone, where he taught and worked on a PhD degree on fresh-water fi shes of Panama. Storrs moved in with him in 1963 and spent his fi rst semester after high school at Canal Zone Junior College, with many expeditions to the “interior” for his fi rst experiences in the tropics. He fi nished his undergraduate work at Florida State University in 1966 and returned to Panama for the summer as part of a project working on immunology of vultures. With his primary interests in systematics and anatomy, Storrs started graduate school at the University of Florida under Pierce Brodkorb. There he gained valuable exposure to fossil birds and the literature of avian paleontology as well as a lifelong friendship with one of ornithology’s most unforgettable characters. Otherwise, Gainesville was not to his liking and he returned to Florida State University to complete his master’s degree in 1968. Because of the number of signifi cant new records of birds that Storrs had obtained in Panama, he was contacted by former Smithsonian Secretary Alexander Wetmore who was engaged in preparing a monograph of the birds of Panama. Storrs fi rst visited Alex Wetmore and the National Museum of Natural History in 1967, and the contacts developed then led to a summer job in 1968 under Richard Banks, in what was then the Fish and Wildlife Service, inventorying the skeleton collection in the Division of Birds. Following this he was employed from 1968 to 1969 as resident manager, under F. S. L. Williamson, director of the Smithsonian’s newly established Chesapeake Bay Center at Edgewater, Maryland. Through the connections between the Chesapeake Bay Center and Johns Hopkins University, Storrs was encouraged to apply to graduate school at Hopkins, where he matriculated at the School of Hygiene and Public Health in the Department of Pathobiology, headed by the eclectic and far-sighted Frederik Bang. With Smithsonian sponsorship, Storrs visited the remote South Atlantic islands of Ascension and St. Helena in 1970 and 1971, where he made important collections of fossil birds and many other items of natural history, which inspired subsequent expeditions by marine biologists because of all the novelties discovered on Ascension Island. Storrs completed his dissertation on the evolution of the rails of the South Atlantic islands and was awarded his ScD degree from Johns Hopkins in 1972. Meanwhile, he had moved into the National Museum of Natural History in August 1971 on a pre-doctoral fellowship, with the unstated intention of never leaving. He next held a presidential internship and then worked as part of S. Dillon Ripley’s research laboratory, completing a chapter on fossil rails for Ripley’s monograph of the Rallidae published in 1977. Storrs was hired as a curator in the Division of Birds, National Museum of Natural History, in March 1975. He met his future wife, Helen James, in 1976 and they embarked on the fi rst of dozens of trips to explore for fossil birds in the Hawaiian Islands in 1977. Their joint exposition of the diversity of the pre-human avifauna of the archipelago has been one of the milestones of systematic ornithology in the past century. Storrs has also conducted fi eldwork in the West Indies, Bermuda, South Africa, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Spain, and Argentina, as well as additional work in Panama and the South Atlantic islands. His more than 300 publications treat modern and fossil birds from all parts of the world and all time periods. Storrs was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2001.
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WILFRED HUDSON OSGOOD Wilfred was born on December 8, 1875, in Rochester, New Hampshire. He studied at Stanford University and received his AB degree in 1899, and then earned a PhD degree from the University of Chicago in 1918. In 1897, Wilfred began his career as a naturalist working as a biologist in the United States Department of Agriculture, and continued in this work until 1909. Specifi cally, he was in charge of the United States biological investigation in Canada from 1899 to 1909. In 1909, Wilfred moved on to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, holding the position of assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology until 1921, and then became the curator of zoology until he retired in 1940. Wilfred conducted biological explorations and surveys of many areas of North and South America, including Canada, Alaska, many parts of the contiguous United States, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Indo-China. He spent three separate years (1906, 1910, and 1930) studying in European museums, and in 1914, Wilfred was a special investigator dealing with a fur-seal study. Wilfred led the Field Museum Abyssinian Expedition from 1926 to 1927 and the Magellanic Expedition from 1939 to 1940. Wilfred was a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and of the American Ornithologists’ Union. He founded and became the fi rst president of Cooper Ornithology Club of California, was secretary of the Biological Society of Washington (1900-09), a corresponding member of the London Zoological Society and the British Ornithologists’ Union, a member (president 1924-26) of the American Society of Mammalogists, a member and trustee of the Chicago Zoological Society, an associate member of the Boone and Crocket Club, a member of the Geographic Society of Chicago, and a member of the biology division of the National Research Council from 1919 to 1920. Wilfred’s fi rst publication was Revision of pocket mice of the genus Perognathus (1900). Other publications included a Revision of mice of American genus Peromyscus (1909), Biological investigations Alaska and Yukon (1909), joint authorship of Fur Seals of Pribilof Islands (1915), Monographic study of Caenolestes (1921), Mammals of Asiatic Expeditions (1932), joint authorship of Artist and naturalist in Ethiopia (1936), and Mammals of Chile (1943). In addition to these, he authored over 180 shorter papers on classifi cation, anatomy, and habits of mammals and birds, as well as contributing zoological defi nitions to Webster’s New International Dictionary. Many mammals were named for him. Wilfred was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901, served as president from 1904 to 1906, and was awarded an honorary membership in 1918. Wilfred died a bachelor on June 20, 1947.
JOSEPH HANNUM PAINTER Joe was born on July 3, 1879, in Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania. As a young teenager he entered Westtown Friends’ Boarding School and graduated in 1899. While a student there he got interested in plants and collected some plant specimens at the school. Later he went to Pennsylvania State College, leaving in his junior year to take a position in the National Museum, where he was appointed as an aid in 1904. He also took courses at George Washington University. In August 1903 and again in June 1905, he went to Mexico to collect plant specimens as an assistant to J. N. Rose.
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Joe and a 16 year-old friend, Robert S. Wallis, were drowned on December 6, 1908, while canoeing on the Potomac near Stubblefi eld Falls, having set out from Plummers Island, where the new canoe had been stored. It was thought likely that Joe, who was a good swimmer, died trying to help his friend, who was not a swimmer. The Washington Biologists’ Field Club offered a reward of $25 for the recovery of each body. Joe’s body was fi nally found and his funeral held April 19, 1909, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Several species are named for him. The dedication of Meibomia painteri Rose & Standley 1913 stated, “The species is named for Mr. J. H. Painter, formerly assistant curator in the Division of Plants in the National Museum, who at the time of his death, was preparing to monograph the genus Meibomia. He had indicated this plant as a new species in the herbarium, but failed to give it a name.” Joe was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in May 1908. He is the fi rst, if not the only, Club member to die at or near Plummers Island.
WILLIAM PALMER William was born in Penge, a district in the south of London, on August 1, 1856, and spent the fi rst 12 years of his life in that area. His father, Joseph, was a skilled modeler and taxidermist, and contact that William had with his father’s working quarters and his colleagues infl uenced his early interest with natural history. William came to New York in 1868 with his father, mother, and sister for a new job that his father had at Central Park dealing with restoration of extinct animals. In 1873, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where the elder Palmer secured a position at the National Museum as a taxidermist and modeler, which he had until his death in 1913. In spite of William’s exposure to museum work, his interests were in other fi elds including medicine. He attended school in New York City, but had to abandon his plans when he received no support from his father. He obtained a good job in Washington, D.C., with a mercantile fi rm, but pressure from his father forced him to leave the job for a position at the Museum as an assistant in modeling and taxidermy. He served for several years under the tutelage of his father learning the art of a preparator, including molding and casting of animals and antiquities, and the preparation of papier-mâché models of the towns of various indigenous cultures. In the spring of 1883, William traveled to New Haven to make paper models of the giant squid and octopus that were used for display in the Great International Fisheries Expedition in London. In the autumn of 1885, William married Arminia Knowles of Washington, D.C. Although she did not share his enthusiasm for natural history, she was a faithful and devoted wife and yielded to his plans for long expeditions, which sometimes threatened to upset their home life. In 1887, William accompanied Dr. Lucas to Newfoundland, Labrador, and New Brunswick to collect
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specimens and report on living species. A notable trip was made to Funk Island to obtain remains of the great auk. In 1890, William made a more distant trip to the Pribilof Islands of Alaska to hunt for walrus and other specimens for the museum. William’s skill with taxidermy and preparation of vegetative material was becoming well known by other museum preparators and he was sent to Chicago to assist in exhibits for the World Fair and to other cities where exhibitions were held. In 1900, William traveled with Joseph Riley to Cuba for collection of animals and plants, and then again to Newfoundland in 1903 to obtain a skeleton and mold of the sulfur-bottom whale. A cast was made of the mold of this 78-foot specimen and then colored for display along with the skeleton in one of the halls of the museum. William also made numerous local trips in Maryland and Virginia and recorded many specimens, both extinct and extant, that he reported in the literature and some of which became part of his extensive personal collection. At Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, he discovered a complete fossil skeleton of a porpoise, later identifi ed as Delphinodon dividum. After an extensive trip in 1909 to Java, where over 2,100 bird specimens were collected, he devoted much time to the preparation of exhibits in the new museum building, including exhibits on Carolina parakeet and fl amingoes. He also had the distinction to prepare the mounted specimen of the last passenger pigeon, Martha, after its well-publicized death at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. In early April 1921, William accompanied Gerrit Miller to the American Museum of Natural History to examine cetacean material they were studying. While in New York, William became ill one evening while attending a meeting of the Explorer’s Club. In the morning his condition was considered serious and he was removed to the Bellevue Hospital. He died there on April 8, 1921, and was buried in the Rock Creek Church Cemetery in Washington, D.C. William was a founding member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900 and was the president from 1913 to 1915.
LYNNE ROSEMARY PARENTI Lynne was born on August 6, 1954, in New York Hospital, Manhattan, New York. When Lynne was two years old, she and her family moved to Staten Island, the rural borough of New York City. They lived on Arthur Kill Road, which ran down the southwestern coast of the island along the Arthur Kill, the waterway separating Staten Island from New Jersey. It was while exploring the salt marshes and decaying docks along that river that Lynne encountered her fi rst killifi shes, later to become the subject of her PhD dissertation. Lynne spent her undergraduate years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, which offered more opportunities for exploring salt marshes. She received her BS degree in 1975 and was awarded her PhD degree in 1980 from the joint graduate training program in systematic biology between the American Museum of Natural History and the City University of New York. Lynne is a specialist on the systematics and historical biogeography of atherinomorph fi shes, killifi shes and relatives, and insular stream gobies. Her publications include monographs on relationships among killifi sh genera, phylogeny of the Andean killifi sh genus Orestias, comparative anatomy and systematics of the phallostethid fi shes and sicydiine gobies, and the theory and methods of cladistic biogeography. For the past 15 years, she has specialized on freshwater fi shes of the Indo-Pacifi c, in particular tropical insular stream gobies, and has collected fi shes in Papua New Guinea, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, China,
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Sulawesi, Hawaii, Taiwan, Tasmania, and New Zealand, as well as the neotropics. Her work on the higher classifi cation of fi shes has included co-editing Interrelationships of Fishes for Academic Press (1996) in which she and a colleague have explored the use of nerve characters in fi sh systematics. She also co-wrote Cladistic Biogeography for the Oxford University Press (1986), the second edition of which was published in 1999, and co-edited Ecology of the Marine Fishes of Cuba, which was published by Smithsonian Institution Press in 2002. While at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, she taught fi sh biology in that museum’s adult education program, and undergraduate courses in ichthyology and systematics as an adjunct professor at San Francisco State University. At the Smithsonian Institution, where she has been a curator in the Division of Fishes, National Museum of Natural History since 1990, she has lectured to the docents and public on fi shes and includes museum education and exhibit development among her professional interests. She is an adjunct professor in the Department of Biology, George Washington University. Lynne was one of the fi rst three women members admitted into the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1995. She enjoyed her fi rst assignment as member of the food committee for the 1995 oyster roast. Lynne lives in upper Northwest Washington, D.C., with her partner, Tina Ramoy, and their Spanish water dog, Ella.
KENNETH WILLIAM PARKER Kenneth was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 18, 1904, but while only a young lad, his family moved to northern California. After graduation from Santa Rosa High School, he attended the University of California at Berkeley. He majored in range management and plant ecology and received BS and MS degrees from the School of Forestry in 1928 and 1929. Kenneth developed a close friendship with his major professor, Dr. A. W. Sampson, and remained at the University, where he studied common Saint Johnswort (Hypericum perfoliatum) and authored a bulletin on the species with Dr. Sampson. Kenneth was assistant professor of animal husbandry in charge of range management at New Mexico State College (Las Cruces) from 1932 to 1937. From there he went to Tucson, where he accepted a position with the Forest Service at the Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station at the University of Arizona. Kenneth remained there for about a decade and received several promotions and became chief of the Experiment Station’s Division of Range Research. While in the southwest Kenneth became a recognized authority on the management of rangelands and his advice was sought by public and private administrators of rangelands. He advanced knowledge in several specialized areas including poisonous plants, control of noxious weeds, artifi cial revegetation, and techniques for measuring range condition and productivity. His studies were published in scientifi c journals and in many state and federal bulletins. In 1948, Kenneth was selected to develop a system for measuring range conditions and trends that could be used by ranchers, who owned livestock using national forest rangelands. This management tool became known as the Parker Three Step Method and was used extensively by state and federal agencies. Coincident with this assignment Kenneth was transferred to the Forest Service Administrative Division of Range Management in Washington, D.C., but remained in Tucson temporarily to demonstrate the Three Step Method to fi eld staff.
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In 1953, Kenneth became assistant chief of the division and was given the diffi cult task of leading a nationwide evaluation of range conditions on national forests. In spite of some of the contentious issues that sometimes developed, Kenneth used his range management and personnel skills to make sound decisions acceptable to both stockmen and the managers. Kenneth became director of the Division of Range and Wildlife Habitat Ecology and Management Research in 1956 and held this position until his retirement in 1969. Kenneth was a member of many scientifi c and professional organizations including The Wildlife Society, Society of American Foresters, and the American Society of Range Management. He was a member of Sigma Xi and the Cosmos Club. Kenneth was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1957. Kenneth died in Washington, D.C., on May 18, 1973. A memorial plaque was installed on Plummers Island for this admired ecologist.
MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY Matt was born on February 8, 1941, and raised in Bristol, Rhode Island, with his fi ve older sisters, including his twin. Two of Matt’s other sisters are also twins, which added to his interesting and adventurous childhood. Matt spent many hours of his early years in the woods and marshes around his home. His early experience at seeing a snowy owl in Bristol, when he was six years old, led him into a life-long interest in birds and their habitats, especially wetlands. He received his BS degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1963 with a major in wildlife management/forestry. After graduation Matt attended Naval Offi cer Candidate School in Newport and was commissioned Ensign in 1963. He served as a Naval Offi cer aboard the USS Mount McKinley for three years during the mid-1960s and spent many hours cruising off the coast of Vietnam. His ship was involved with the fi rst two amphibious landing of troops in Vietnam in 1965. He became a Lieutenant and was qualifi ed for Offi cer of the Deck (formation steaming). Leaving the Navy in 1966, Matt began a career in wildlife biology working for the Rhode Island Fish and Game and in October 1966 married Patricia Spangler from California, whom he had met in Hawaii during a ship visit. While in Rhode Island he worked on many wildlife projects, but was especially active with waterfowl, including a major study of the exotic mute swan. After two years, he went to Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where in 1970 he received his MS degree with a major in wildlife management under Dr. Robert H. Giles. His thesis was entitled Studies of Deer-Related Dog Activity in Virginia. He then worked in Florida for a year at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge as the assistant refuge manager. In addition to traditional management duties, Matt initiated a research study on apple snails, an important food of the Everglade kite. Matt has worked at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland since 1971, where he conducted studies in waterfowl food habits, nutrition, and ecology. During this period he conducted further graduate studies and received his PhD degree in 1985 at the University of Maryland under Dr. Wayne J. Kuenzel. His dissertation was entitled Seasonal Infl uence of Nutrients on the Physiology and Behavior of Captive Canvasbacks (Aythya valisineria). Matt spent fi ve years (1987-92) as special assistant to the director and was extensively involved with the planning and construction of the National Wildlife Visitor Center. He was involved with the transfer to Patuxent of 8,100 acres of excess military land from the adjacent Fort Meade. Matt’s research during the 1990s dealt with the management, restoration, enhancement, and creation of wetland and upland habitats. He evaluated forested wetlands created for mitigation of destroyed natural
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wetlands and management techniques to improve habitat (especially wetland impoundments) for wildlife. He also headed a large study dealing with seaducks, including a satellite telemetry study and a feeding ecology study with surf and black scoters. Matt was chair of two symposia dealing with Chesapeake waterfowl; black ducks (2002) and mute swans (2004). He also chaired the Second North American Sea Duck Conference (2005). Matt is a special member of the faculty at the University of Maryland and has served on several faculty committees for graduate students. He serves on numerous professional committees including the Maryland Governor’s waterfowl advisory committee. He is a certifi ed wildlife biologist and a certifi ed wetland scientist. Matt had a second marriage to Georgia Haramis in 1980 and has one step-son, Jason, and two younger sons, Oliver and Christopher. Jason and Christopher are in the U.S. Army and both have served in Iraq during the war. All of his sons have spent many hours as workers on work days at Plummers Island. He was elected into membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1986. He has served as board member for many years and was chair of house and grounds for fi ve years. He served as chair of the books and photographs committee and coordinated the activities to prepare a book dealing with the history of the Club and biographies of the members. He was vice president of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club from 1998 to 2002 and president from 2002 to 2005.
JAMES ARTHUR PETERS Jim was born on July 13, 1922, in Durant, Iowa, and was the son of Arthur J. and Jane Terrell Peters. Jim was a student at the University of Illinois from 1941 to 1942, and then received his BS degree from the University of Michigan in 1948, his MA degree in 1950, and his PhD degree in 1952. He was also a postgraduate student at the University of Texas in 1950. On June 18, 1964, Jim married Beatriz Moisset de Espanes and they had one son, Steven. They also raised fi ve children (Jane, Arthur James, Jennifer Laura, Druscilla Anne, and Jeffrey Edward) from a previous marriage of Jim’s. Jim was trained as a biologist. He spent some time teaching as well as working for a museum. Jim was on the faculty of Brown University from 1952 to 1958, working as an assistant professor in biology from 1955 to 1958. In 1958, he went to Quito, Ecuador, as a Fulbright professor. He then moved on to San Fernando Valley State College in Northridge, California, working as an associate professor and then a full professor of biology from 1959 to 1964. At this point Jim turned to working at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. There he was an associate curator from 1964 to 1966 and curator from 1966 to 1972. Jim’s interest in herpetology was refl ected by the organizations in which he was involved. He served
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in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1945. Jim was a fellow of the Herpetologists League and a member of the American Association of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists of which he was president in 1970. Jim was also a member of the Society of the Study of Evolution, the Society of Systematic Zoology, the British Herpetological Society, Herpetological Association of Africa, the Association of Tropical Biology of which he was associate editor from 1969 to 1970, member of the Biological Society of Washington, and member of the Southern California Academy of Scientists. Among the publications that Jim wrote, edited, or compiled are Snakes of the Subfamily Dipsadinae, the Catalogue of Neotropical Squamata, Classic Papers in Genetics, the Dictionary of Herpetology, the Concise American Heritage Dictionary, and Encyclopedia Britannica. Jim was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1939. Jim died on December 18, 1972, and was buried in Greenup, Illinois.
ROGER TORY PETERSON Roger was born on August 28, 1908, in Jamestown, New York, the son of immigrant parents from Sweden and Germany. He became interested in birds and joined a Junior Audubon Club at age 11. Soon thereafter he purchased fi eld glasses, a camera, and the Reed Bird Guides. As a young man he was infl uenced by ornithologist Ludlow Griscom and the bird artists, Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Francis Lee Jaques. At 19 he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City and later studied at the National Academy of Art Design (1929-31). He received a DSc degree from Franklin and Marshall College in 1952. At the Bronx County Bird Club he met Joe Hickey and Allan Cruickshank, both enthusiastic young fi eld birders. On a visit to the Buffalo Museum of Natural Science in 1928, he was encouraged by John Aldrich to continue his deepening interest in birds, and afterwards taught natural history and art in summer camps in Michigan, Massachusetts, and Maine. In the early 1930s, as a young struggling artist, he became skilled at noticing distinctive features of birds so that any bird could be readily identifi ed from other birds at a glance. His fi rst book, A Field Guide to the Birds, appeared in 1934, demonstrating the prominent fi eld marks that enabled quick identifi cation. Since then, four updated revisions of the eastern guide, 47 reprintings, and more than seven million copies of Peterson’s two fi eld guides (eastern and western) have been sold. In 1934, Roger joined the staff of the National Association of Audubon Societies as educational director and art director for Bird Lore, the Societies’ magazine. He redesigned Audubon Junior Leafl ets and revised the requirements for the Boy Scouts’ Bird Study Merit Badge. He published A Field Guide to Western Birds (1941), and continued to write and illustrate articles aimed at a popular market, bridging the gap between professional ornithologists and amateur bird-watchers. In 1943, Roger was drafted into the Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he was fi rst in the camoufl age unit and later the unit assigned to produce technical manuals. Life magazine used his fi eld guide principles for a plane-spotting manual; later the Air Corps used them in their training manual for plane identifi cation. Once, he persuaded a drill sergeant to reroute marching troops so as to avoid a horned lark’s nest. In his apartment’s tiny bathroom with white tiles, he continued to paint birds from memory, sketches, and photographs, some taken at National Airport. After the war, Roger moved his family to Glen Echo, Maryland, where he attracted ornithologists from all over the world, and continued to build his reputation as a skilled bird
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artist and wildlife photographer. Recognition of his natural history skills brought membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1947 and honorary membership in 1982. He was a dogged proponent of environmental protection and banning of DDT. Following a move to Old Lyme, Connecticut, Roger continued to publish fi eld guides and other books, and was rewarded by many public accolades, including the American Ornithologists’ Union Brewster Medal, the Gold Medal of the New York Zoological Society, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He married Mildred Warner Washington on December 19, 1936. He was married a second time to Barbara Coulter on July 29, 1943. Roger had two sons, Tory and Lee. Roger died in 1996. He was respected worldwide as an ornithologist, artist, writer, and wildlife photographer. A warm, forthright person, Roger left a legacy of untiring zeal in the pursuit of bird studies and the conservation of natural resources for future generations to enjoy.
ADRIAN JOHN PIETERS Adrian was born on November 18, 1866, to Roelof and Hendrika Pieters in Alto, Wisconsin. He received his BS degree from the University of Michigan in 1894 and his PhD degree from the University of Michigan in 1915. Adrian traveled and studied in Germany from 1910 to 1912. He married Hattie May Bailey on June 30, 1896. Hattie died in 1935 and he married Mary R. Burr in 1936. He was a botanist in charge of seed and plant introduction and distribution in the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the period from 1900 to 1906 and an instructor of botany at the University of Michigan from 1912 to 1915. Adrian was an agronomist with U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1915 to 1938 and was a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1938 the Progressive Farmer inaugurated the custom of announcing early in each year, recognition of some one man who had rendered distinguished service to agriculture in the south as a whole. The following is taken from the Progressive Farmer: “For service to the agriculture of our Southeastern states we nominate as “1938 Man of the Year,” Dr. A. J. Pieters who has just re tired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, after a record of invaluable achievement as chief of the Division of Forage Crops. We salute and nominate Dr. Pieters because of his monumental work in introducing improved lespedeza varieties in the Southern states and promoting the general acceptance of this amazing crop. Let’s hear Dr. Pieters tell how Korean lespedeza got its start in America. Among other samples of seed planted at the Arlington Farm in 1920 was one of a new lespedeza received from Korea. This was planted in comparison with several Essary selections from Tennessee and as soon as the plants were 3 or 4 inches high it was seen that here was a remarkable fi nd. Naturally every seed was saved and for the next 3 or 4 years from
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2,000 to 3,000 pounds were produced at Arlington Farm and dis tributed to state agricultural experiment stations and to private cooperators. The way this plant has spread to nearly every farm from Piedmont North Carolina to Kansas and to North Central Illinois shows a real need for such a plant existed and that lespedeza fi lled that need adequately and well. And not only did Dr. Pieters discover and develop new varieties of lespedeza, but by speeches, bulletins, and books he has made himself a missionary in its behalf, preaching everywhere its three-fold value as (1) a hay plant, (2) a pasture plant, and (3) a soil-saver and soil-builder.” Adrian was a founding member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900 and terminated his membership in 1901. He retired in 1938 and lived in Takoma Park, D.C. He died on April 25, 1940.
GIFFORD PINCHOT Gifford was born on August 11, 1865, in Simsbury, Connecticut. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, where he received a BA degree in 1899. He also held the MA (1901) and LLD (1925) degrees from Yale, MA degree (1904) from Princeton University, ScD degree (1907) from Michigan Agricultural College, LLD degree (1909) from McGill University, LLD degree (1923) from Pennsylvania Military College, and LLD degree (1931) from Temple University. He was the fi rst American to receive formal instruction in forestry; he studied at National School of Waters and Forests, Nancy, France, in 1900. No academic institution in the United States then offered forestry courses. After opening a forestry consulting offi ce in New York in 1891, Gifford began the fi rst systematic forest management in the United States at Biltmore, the Vanderbilt estate at North Carolina, in January 1892. Gifford was in a private consulting practice for several years thereafter, and in 1896, was a member of the Forest Commission appointed by the National Academy of Sciences. The Commission recommended creation of forest reserves (now national forests) from the public domain, which was responsible for the Forest Reserve Act of 1897 that provided for the administration and protection of the reserves. In 1898, Gifford was appointed forester and chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry, which became the Bureau of Forestry in 1901 and the Forest Service in 1905. Also in 1905, the forest reserves were transferred from the U.S. Department of Interior to Agriculture, and in 1907, were renamed national forests. During Gifford’s administration, national forests increased from 51 million acres in area in 1901 to 175 million acres by 1910. Gifford was organizer of The White House Governors’ Conference on Natural Resources in May 1908. He also chaired the subsequent National Conservation Commission that compiled the fi rst inventory of the country’s natural resources. In 1910, he was dismissed as chief of the Forest Service by President Taft. He spent the next several years supporting Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose presidential campaign of 1912. He also organized and became president of the National Conservation Association, formed to continue the fi ght for his conservation ideas, and he served as a member of the Federal Food Commission. From 1920 to 1922, Gifford was commissioner of Pennsylvania’s Department of Forestry and later secretary of that state’s Department of Forests and Waters. He served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1923 to 1927 and from 1931 to 1935. Gifford founded the School of Forestry at Yale University, and also the Society of American Foresters, of which he was its fi rst president. An avid birder, Gifford authored numerous papers and reports on conservation topics, including books A Primer of Forestry (1899), The Fight for Conservation (1909), The Training of a
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Forester (1914), and Breaking New Ground, his autobiography (1947). Gifford, acknowledged as the “father” of American forestry, was largely responsible for conservation becoming widely known and supported by the public and established in policy by both federal and state governments. He is credited with popularizing the term “conservation” in its modern, natural resource context, and in asserting its defi nition as “the greatest good for the greatest number.” He married Cornelia Elizabeth Bryce in 1913. They had one son, Gifford Bryce. He died in New York on October 4, 1946. Gifford was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1905.
CHARLES VANCOUVER PIPER Charles was born on June 16, 1867, in Victoria, British Columbia. He attended the State University of Washington, getting a BS degree in 1885 and an MS degree in 1892. He received a second MS degree from Harvard in 1900, remaining there as a professor of botany and zoology until 1903, when he was appointed to the Department of Agriculture. He was fi rst put in charge of the Grass Herbarium in the Offi ce of the Agrostologist from 1903 to 1905 and then was put in charge of the offi ce of Forage Crop Investigations from 1905 to 1926. Kansas Agricultural College conferred an honorary DSc degree on him in 1921. He did fi eld work in Alaska (1904), the Philippines (1911), the Canal Zone (1923), and Europe (1924). He was much interested in the fl ora of Washington State and published several manuals and a number of taxonomic articles throughout his working career. He became well known in agronomy thanks to his work on several forage legumes and grasses. He was instrumental in introducing Sudan grass (a kind of sorghum) from Africa. He was a golfer, who revolutionized greens by his discoveries. Charles died on February 11, 1926, in Washington, D.C. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1908 and terminated his membership in 1910.
MICHAEL G. POGUE Mike was born in San Diego, California, on May 31, 1952. He grew up in the Denver, Colorado, area and became interested in biology and natural history when given a microscope for his eighth birthday. During his childhood he spent most weekends in the mountains of Colorado camping, fi shing, skiing, and investigating natural history. During his undergraduate work at the University of Colorado, he became interested in entomology after completing course work under Robert E. Gregg. Upon graduation with a BA degree in Organismic Biology (Zoology) in 1974, he began volunteering at the Denver Museum of Natural History. After several contract jobs, Mike began full-time work as a curatorial assistant in the Zoological Collections Department. He was responsible for the curation of the bird and insect collections. He participated in many birding fi eld trips and began collecting Colorado butterfl ies for the museum. Mike led some of the fi rst butterfl y-watching fi eld trips for members of the museum and developed an insect zoo as a temporary summer exhibit. In June of 1979, Mike began a research assistantship at the University of Wyoming, studying the
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Tortricinae (Lepidoptera: Tortricinae) of Wyoming, in conjunction with a study on insects affecting shelterbelts in Wyoming. He traveled extensively over the entire state collecting Lepidoptera and studying robberfl y behavior with Robert J. Lavigne. He graduated with an MS degree in 1981. He then began pursuing a PhD degree at the University of Minnesota, working on a generic revision of the Cochylini (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) under the supervision of William E. Miller. After passing his preliminary examinations, Mike had the opportunity to collect Lepidoptera in New Caledonia for three months with support from Donald R. Davis of the Department of Systematic Biology at the Smithsonian Institution. From 1984 to 1985, Mike was at the Smithsonian on a pre-doctoral fellowship. He remained there until fi nishing his PhD degree in February of 1986. In March, 1986, he went on another collecting trip to Paraguay funded by Dr. Davis. In July, 1986, Mike began working for Terry Erwin, Department of Systematic Biology, Smithsonian Institution, in the BioLAT program. In January of 1990, he began work as a museum specialist for Dr. Erwin. During the next six years Mike spent one to two months each year assisting Dr. Erwin in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, collecting insects from the rainforest canopies. During this time Mike authored and co-authored several papers on insect biodiversity. In August of 1996, Mike was hired as a research entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Systematic Entomology Laboratory as a Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) specialist. He has published numerous papers on Noctuidae systematics and has recently completed a world revision of the armyworm genus Spodoptera. He also has been instrumental in databasing the Smithsonian holdings of Noctuidae. Mike belongs to the Lepidopterists’ Society, the Entomological Society of Washington, where he is treasurer, and the Entomological Society of America. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2000.
CHARLES LOUIS POLLARDCharles was born on March 29, 1872, in New York City.
He attended Columbia University and earned a BA degree in 1893 and an MA degree in 1894. He was an assistant curator in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Division of Botany (1894-95) and then in the U.S. National Museum (1895-1903), collecting plants in the southeastern United States and Cuba. He was editor of Plant World from 1897 to 1913 and was consulting botanist for G. & C. Merriam Co. of Springfi eld, Massachusetts (1903-06), contributing botanical and horticultural terms to various dictionaries. He became curator in chief and patron of the Public Museum of Staten Island Association of Arts and Science (1907-13), was an executive in the Boy Scouts of America (1917-20) and became librarian of the Canfi eld Free Library in Arlington, Vermont, in 1937. Charles died in Arlington, Vermont, on August 16, 1945, a respected botanical scholar. Charles was a founder of the Club in 1900 and, as its fi rst president, was a moving force in establishing the Club, getting it
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incorporated in 1901. When he left the area he paid his dues ($3) and offered his resignation. It was refused and he was made an honorary member in 1908.
WILLIAM MCCALLY POLLOCKWilliam was born in 1876.
Millspaugh (1913:8) said “W(illiam) Mc(Cally) Pollock, while a student at the University of West Virginia, collected largely, from 1893 to 1897...” Stafl eu (1983) reported 578 West Virginia duplicates at the U.S. National Herbarium. William was a 1900 Founder of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club and terminated his membership in 1901.
CLIFFORD C. PRESNALL Clifford was born on December 9, 1898, in Dubuque, Iowa. In 1907, his family moved to Oregon where he spent his boyhood and early manhood. He served in the Army in World War I and graduated from Oregon Agriculture College (now Oregon State University) in 1923 with a BS degree in animal husbandry. He was engaged in livestock ranching and range management in eastern Oregon, Idaho, and California from 1923 to 1929. His original plans were to become a sheep rancher, but after a visit to Yosemite National Park in 1929 he changed career plans. Clifford took and passed the examination for ranger naturalist and received a job at Yosemite in 1930. Shortly after employment he married Ruby Davis from Oregon in an outdoor ceremony at the foot of Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite. Their son David was born at Yosemite. Clifford also served at Zion and Bryce National Parks from 1934 to 1938, until Clifford was transferred to the national offi ce of the National Park Service. A second son, Dean, was born during his time in Zion and Bryce. Clifford became a biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Biological Survey, Washington, D.C., in 1939 and then with the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1940 with the Branch of Predator and Rodent Control. During World War II (1941-46) he was transferred to Chicago when the offi ce moved from Washington, D.C. Clifford was transferred back to Washington in 1946 and continued to serve with the Division of Predator and Rodent Control, eventually becoming the chief of this Division in 1961. He published 30 articles in the period from 1933 to 1964, and they focused mostly on predator-prey relationships. Clifford’s published works dealt with the policy issues of predator control as well as the biological relationships between predator and prey species. His professional affi liations included memberships in The Wildlife Society, the American Society of Mammalogists, and the Society of American Foresters. Clifford retired in 1965 with 36 years of government service and received the distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Department of Interior. On retirement he moved to Coles Point, Virginia. Clifford was active in numerous advisory and liaison projects with government agencies and private organizations dealing with conservation issues. Clifford died on December 16, 1981, of liver and stomach cancer. Clifford was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1939 and served as treasurer from 1953 to 1962, which was a critical time when the property was sold.
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DANIEL IRVIN RASMUSSEN Daniel was born in Mount Pleasant, Utah, on May 21, 1903. Living in Utah, he developed an early interest in biology. He attended Brigham Young University and graduated in 1928 with a BS degree in zoology. At the University of Illinois he earned both MS and PhD degrees in 1932 in botany and ecology. His PhD dissertation, Biotic Communities of the Kaibab Plateau, is still quoted and referenced. He began the Department of Wildlife Management in the Forestry School at Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in 1934, making it one of the fi rst to offer degrees in wildlife management. In 1935, he was appointed to be the fi rst leader of the Utah Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit. This was the fi rst organization of its type created by the Bureau of Biological Survey (now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), in this case in cooperation with Utah State University. In this position he aided many graduate students with their projects, including studies on expanding deer populations, beavers, waterfowl and other game birds, and fi sheries. During this time he also published numerous scientifi c articles. He received another appointment in 1945, this time to be director of the Inter-mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service. Then in 1963, he became director of Wildlife Management for the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. He retired in December of 1967. Daniel received various awards and honors. He was invited in 1949 to give an address to the United Nations Scientifi c Conference on Conservation and Utilization of Resources at Lake Success, New York. His address was titled Game and Fur Conservation on Rangelands in the Western United States. In 1952, he was given a certifi cate of merit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Two years later he received the Superior Service Award, also from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “for valuable contributions in the practical management of wildlife resources through the application of scientifi c knowledge and a cooperative approach with State agencies and other public and private groups.” Utah State University awarded him the Jim Bridger trophy in 1955 for his work to further teaching and management of natural resources. He also had earned the honor of membership in Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, Xi Sigma Pi, and Phi Sigma. He was national vice president of The Wildlife Society from 1950 to 1951, and member of the Wilderness Society, the American Fisheries Society, and the American Society of Mammalogists. Daniel was involved with the North American Wilderness Conference since it began in 1936. He also was the advisor on wildlife management to the third and fourth sessions of the North American Forestry Commission in 1965 and 1967. “Doc Ras” is remembered as having integrity and being a keen man, as well as being just and fearless in decision making. He was an authority on wildlife management and one of the fi rst to take a scientifi c approach to the subject, developing various principles and techniques. He also is known to have been “a skilled and learned ecologist long before ‘ecology’ became a common, though still little-understood word.” He died on May 24, 1979, in Ogden, Utah. Daniel was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1967.
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ROBERT WILLIAM READ Bob was born in Woodbury, New Jersey, on December 13, 1931. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1950 to 1954 and then the U.S. Air Force Reserve from 1954 to 1957 with several years of active duty. He earned a BS degree at the University of Miami in 1958 and an MS degree at Cornell University in 1961. He was awarded his PhD degree at the University of the West Indies in 1968. Bob was a botanist at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami during 1960 to 1965. In 1967, he received a postdoctoral research award from the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, to work with Dr. Lyman B. Smith at the Smithsonian Botany Department. He was fi eld chief for the Flora of Ceylon Project (1969-70), and assumed editorship for the Index Nominum Genericorum project (1970-72). In 1972, he joined the staff of the North American Flora Project and served as editor for one year. In 1973, he became an associate curator in the Department of Botany, Smithsonian, and later curator until his retirement in 1989. Following his retirement to Naples, Florida, Bob continued his research on palms and bromeliads with a renewed staff position at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami. He was active in the Botanical Society of Washington as secretary, vice president, and president. He served on the board of the Las Cruces Botanical Garden and on the advisory committee of the Marie Selby Botanical Garden. His particular research interests focused on systematic botany, especially the recalcitrant and often poorly collected groups: palms, bromeliads, cycads, and orchids. A number of species of plants were named for him including a palm, Coccothrinax readii, an acanthus, Justicic readii, and a bromeliad, Billbergia robertreadii. In 1993, he was co-founder and founding chairman of the Botanical Garden, Inc., now the Naples Botanical Garden in Naples, Florida. He was nominated to the board of directors of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida (1993-99), and served as secretary to the local chapter of the Explorers Club (1997-2000). He also was featured in 60-second radio spots aired throughout the week with botanical and environmental information in 1999 and 2000. Bob died of congestive heart failure on July 16, 2003, in Naples, Florida. Bob was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1975 and served on several committees, including house and grounds in 1982 and auditing in 1983.
THEODORE HAROLD REED Ted was born on July 25, 1922, at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C. As a member of a military family, he traveled a great deal as a child and spent some time in the Philippine Islands prior to World War II. He graduated in 1945 with a DVM degree from the School of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State College, Manhattan, Kansas. He practiced veterinary medicine in Idaho and Oregon. As an assistant state veterinarian in Oregon he became involved in exotic animal medicine with colleagues at the Portland Zoo. He applied for and was accepted as the staff veterinarian at the National Zoological Park and entered the position on July 15, 1955. Ted’s career as a full-time vet was brief, since Dr. William Mann’s retirement was imminent. He was appointed acting director in October 1956 and named director of the Zoo on March 12, 1958. As director, Ted was involved with many animal acquisitions and traveled widely, most notably to
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Kenya in an effort to capture the bongo. White tiger, okapis, and pandas highlighted his career, but as director, Ted was the leader during a period of phenomenal growth. After S. Dillon Ripley became secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1964, the Zoo’s budget became part of the Smithsonian’s congressional appropriation. The enhanced monetary support allowed a complete renovation and expansion of the Zoo’s facilities and staff, including the addition of a department of zoological research and a department of pathology. The staff of veterinarians was increased and a new hospital/research building, administration building, great ape house, large cat exhibit, and total renovation of almost every exhibit area led to recognition of the National Zoo as a world-class facility. The acquisition of the Front Royal, Virginia, Remount Station, and its conversion to a research and exotic breeding facility in 1974, was the crowning achievement in this phase of growth during Ted’s administration. Ted stepped down as director on April 1, 1983, after 25 years of service. Ted married Mary Elizabeth Crandall on April 20, 1945. They had a son, Mark Crandall, and a daughter, May Alyee. Ted was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1956 and terminated his membership in 1985.
MARK JOSEPH REEFF Mark was a native of Washington State, born on October 21, 1956. He attended Central Washington University where he received his bachelor’s degree in geology and environmental science, and his master’s degree in natural resource management. He married Dorothy in 1980 and their son, Joey, was born in 1991. He began his career with the Washington State Energy Offi ce, determining the economic and environmental feasibility of using geothermal resources in that state. Mark spent about two years with the Sport Fishing Institute in Washington, D.C., as an economics specialist where he edited The Bulletin and worked on a variety of issues including artifi cial fi shing reefs. He had publications on artifi cial reefs, aquatic education, and fi sh and wildlife management. Since January 1987, he worked with the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, being promoted to resource director in 1990. He was involved in a number of national issues, including the 1990 Farm Bill and the Wallop-Breaux controversy. He was the project leader of the Association’s proactive strategy for dealing with the animal rights movement. He also served as chairman of the Aquatic Resources Education Council. He had responsibility for several successful national conferences. Mark was active in professional circles including the American Fisheries Society and was president of the Potomac Chapter in 1990. He presented a number of papers at professional conferences. Mark got along well with and was respected by academia, the heads of the state, provincial and federal agencies, with “hill” personnel, fellow workers, and cooperators.
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Mark was an ardent outdoorsman and completely dedicated to sound, scientifi c resource management. He was a hard, serious worker and, at the same time, fun loving and gregarious. Mark Reeff was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1991. Mark died on March 30, 1997, in Silver Spring, Maryland. He was buried at Washington Memorial Cemetery near Seattle on April 4. A memorial service was held on May 13 at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., for this respected and well-liked biologist whose life was regrettably short.
HENRY MILTON REEVES Milt was born on March 31, 1927, in Woodbury, New Jersey. Early years were spent afi eld, often hunting, in the “wilderness” of southern New Jersey, particularly the Maurice River tidelands. After discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1946, he entered Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in Logan, obtaining a BS degree in wildlife management. In 1950, he worked for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game as a conservation offi cer and research biologist. In 1952, he returned to Logan, using his studies on waterfowl and muskrats on Dingle Marsh, Idaho, as his MS degree thesis. This ecological study eventually led to the establishment of the Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge. In July 1953, Milt entered duty with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas where enforcement-management duties focused on white-winged doves and waterfowl of the Laguna Madre. Three summers were spent in Canada on waterfowl air-ground studies and banding. In 1957, he transferred to Aberdeen, South Dakota, as a biologist to head up the Service’s fl edgling Wetlands Habitat Protection program. Seven years were spent there assessing and acquiring prairie pothole habitat. In 1965, he transferred to the Minneapolis Regional Offi ce, serving as assistant regional chief (technical) of the Branch of Management and Enforcement for migratory game bird programs. In 1967, he transferred to Laurel, Maryland, to organize the newly funded Accelerated Research Program for “webless” migratory game birds and related activities. Transferring to Washington, D.C., in 1976, he served as chief of the Branch of Operations, Offi ce of Migratory Birds. In this capacity he drafted the annual federal hunting regulations for the Federal Register and related documents, and supervised the Service’s role in fl yway migratory game bird management. Overseas assignments took him to Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Caribbean. In 1976, he and two colleagues developed the fi rst procedures to implement the use of satellite imagery to monitor presence of snow cover on Arctic goose breeding grounds. During 1983 to 1984, he served as assistant editor for the Journal of Wildlife Management for migratory game bird papers. During his career he authored, edited, or contributed to 50 or so papers and books on migratory game birds or their habitats. Among the latter were A Contribution to An Annotated Bibliography of North American Cranes, Rails, Woodcock, Snipe, Doves, and Pigeons (1975), Flyways (1984), and Ecology and Management of the Mourning Dove (1993). Retirement interests have focused on the “cultural-historical aspects” of various North American species and for introductory chapters in books on the wood duck, moose, and pronghorn. For several years he has been preparing a book on the historical and cultural relationships between man and North American migratory game birds. Milt was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1980, and maintains non-resident membership status in the Club, while in retirement in Amity, Oregon.
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PERCY LEROY RICKER Percy was born on March 27, 1878, in Brunswick, Maine. He received a BS degree and an MS degree in 1901 from the University of Maine where he was an assistant in the Department of Biology. He was hired in 1901 at the age of 23 as scientifi c assistant agrostologist in the Bureau of Plant Industries of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the same year that A. S. Hitchcock was hired as agrostologist. In 1902, he published A preliminary list of Maine fungi with 86 pages. In 1913, he was assistant botanist, taxonomic and range investigator, and published Directions of collecting plants with 8 pages. In 1918, he published Botanical activity in the District of Columbia and vicinity and in 1946 published New Asiatic species of Campylotropis [Legum.]. He was an expert photographer of wild fl owers and traveled widely in the United States leaving behind a tremendous collection of glass negatives when he left the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He assisted with the selection of type specimens of grasses during World War II at the National Herbarium, annotating them with his initials “P. L. R.” Although a great botanist, he did have one fault and that was his handwriting. In 1988, Regina Hughes, an artist in the Botany Department, then in her 80s, wrote a note about him: “Percy’s writing was absolutely terrible, he sometimes asked me to type something for him, I would rather be eaten by lions.” He retired as an associate botanist in National Museum’s Department of Botany in 1948 at age 70. He named about 35 new species of plants. His collections of 10,000 parasitic fungi are at the University of Wisconsin (Madison). He died on February 2, 1973, at the age of 94, in the Nursing Center of San Angelo, Texas. Percy was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1905, was treasurer from 1908 to 1938 (probably a record that will not be broken), served on various committees, and was awarded an honorary membership in 1957.
JOSEPH HARVEY RILEY Joseph was born on September 19, 1873, in Falls Church, Virginia. He had an interest in collecting bird eggs at an early age and his interest in birds brought him to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where he met Robert Ridgway, marking the beginning of a lifelong friendship. In 1896, he came to the U.S. National Museum on a temporary appointment as an aid to assist in the collection of eggs of North American birds. Although the appointment was brief because of the lack of funds, he was rehired in 1897 and then became a permanent member of the staff in the Division of Birds in 1898. In 1928, he became assistant curator and in 1932 associate curator, a position he held until his death. His fi rst expedition was in 1900 when he accompanied William Palmer in the collection of birds in Cuba. Joseph assisted Palmer and Paul Bartsch on several collection trips along the Atlantic coast for
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shorebirds and other species. In 1910, he accompanied Ned Hollister to Canada, where they made records of 78 species of birds. The Canadian expedition was his last extended trip, and thereafter, he was assigned to trips in the mideast and southeast of the United States. One iguana species and six subspecies of birds are named for him. He published 116 scientifi c papers and notes. Joseph was a large man of athletic form who had a strong interest in hunting and the training and handling of bird dogs. He also was interested in trap shooting and was a good clay pigeon shot. Although he was friendly with his colleagues and was involved in long technical discussions, he avoided situations that would call him to speak in public. This diffi dence kept him away from dinners and other similar social functions. He belonged to many scientifi c organizations and also was active for a while in the Masonic Lodge, church, and civic affairs. Joseph never married and throughout his life he was a resident of his family home in Virginia where he was born except for occasional trips in the fi eld. He died on December 17, 1941, from hypertensive heart disease following a several-year period of failing health. His funeral was held in his well-loved house. This kind, friendly man of unfailing courtesy devoted his entire life to the science of ornithology. Joseph was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901, but terminated his membership in 1914 because of the diffi culties attendant in reaching the meetings of the Club on Plummers Island from his home in Virginia.
MICHAEL HILL ROBINSON Michael was born on January 7, 1929, in Preston, Lancashire, England. He earned a Certifi cate of Education in 1956, a BS degree at the University of Wales in 1963, and a PhD degree in zoology at Oxford University in 1966. His career in the New World and at the Smithsonian began in 1966 as staff member at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Station in Panama. In 1980, he came to Washington as the assistant director of the National Zoo with gradual promotions until he became director in 1984, from which he retired at the end of April 2000. Michael is an eminent animal behaviorist, particularly in tropical biology. He is the author of 150 publications, lately focusing on the philosophy and organization of zoos and the role of zoos in conservation. He has done research in 18 countries in addition to Panama, including Kenya, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Assam, Papua, New Guinea, Brunei, and Venezuela. Michael was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1986 and terminated membership in 1988.
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PAUL GEORGE RUSSELL Paul was born on April 24, 1889, in Liverpool, Onondaga County, New York, and came to Washington when his family moved in 1902, graduating from old Central High School. He received an AB degree and an MS degree from George Washington University. In 1909, he was fi rst employed by the Federal Government, reportedly by the National Herbarium, and was collecting in northern Mexico with J. N. Rose and P. C. Standley in 1910, also with J. N. Rose in Argentina, Texas, and West Indies in 1913 and Brazil in 1915. He was one of the people involved with the establishment of the Japanese cherries of the Washington Tidal Basin. In 1916, he joined the Department of Agriculture as a seed botanist and became a national authority on identifi cation of plant species by seed alone, building a collection of more than 40,000 vials. He was back doing plant exploration in Mexico in 1927. In 1934, he published the authoritative 72-page U.S. Department of Agriculture bulletin, The Oriental Flowering Cherries, which was revised in 1938. He retired in 1959 at the age of 70. While working on the history of the U.S. Department of Agriculture seed collection he had a fatal heart attack on April 3, 1963, in Beltsville, Maryland, just a day before his daughter was to take him to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms. Paul was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1925 and was active to the end of his life.
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WILLIAM EDWIN SAFFORD William was born December 14, 1859, in Chillicothe, Ohio. Little is known of his early schooling, but he learned idiomatic German from schoolmates. When 17, he entered the U.S. Naval Academy, where he studied marine biology, graduating in 1880. He then was assigned to the ship Powhatan for a cruise in the tropics. In 1883, he entered Yale for advanced work in botany. In 1885, he registered at Harvard for marine zoology. Afterwards he went on a cruise around Cape Horn and into the South Pacifi c, focusing on botany and ethnology. On his return he taught languages at Annapolis for two years. During the years from 1891 to 1892, while off duty, he was in South America as commissioner to Peru and Bolivia for the Chicago Columbian Exhibition, chiefl y devoting his attention to ethnology. Returning to the Navy in 1883, he served in the Spanish-American War and subsequently for a year as vice-governor of Guam. While in Guam he began the investigations that led to his Useful Plants of the Island of Guam and The Chamorro Language of the Island of Guam, both published in 1905. In 1902, he resigned from the Navy and became an assistant botanist in the Offi ce of Economic and Systematic Botany of the Bureau of Plant Industry, U.S. Department of Agriculture, continuing with impressive works like Cactaceae of Northeastern and Central Mexico (1909). In 1915, he was promoted to economic botanist, his title to the end of his life. In 1920, George Washington University awarded him a PhD degree. On March 17, 1924, he was stricken by a paralytic stroke from which he never recovered, although he continued working, dictating his books and maintaining his correspondence. He died January 10, 1926, a highly respected botanist, ethnologist, and linguist. Two genera, Saffordia, and Saffordiella, were named for him, as well as 16 species, the fi rst being Vicia saffordii and the last Dianella saffordii. William was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and was active throughout his life.
EUGENE AMANDUS SCHWARZ Eugene was born in Liegnitz, Silesia, on April 21, 1844. As a boy he became interested in entomology. He was a student at the University of Breslau and the University of Leipzig. In December 1872, Eugene came to the United States and became an assistant to H. A. Hagen at Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1874, he went with H. G. Hubbard to Detroit, where they founded the Detroit Scientifi c Association and built up a collection of insects. With Hubbard, he made explorations into Florida and the Lake Superior region and published papers on the Coleoptera of those areas. In the summer of 1878, he was taken on as an assistant to C. V. Riley in Washington, D.C., in the closing work of the U.S. Entomological Commission, and then secured a position in November with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Although he was paid by Agriculture for many years, he worked in the U.S. National Museum
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as the curator of Coleoptera. He made numerous expeditions covering practically all sections of the United States and also spent months in Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, and Cuba. Eugene was one of the most learned entomologists in the United States. He was an exceedingly close observer, a great collector, and a very broad student of entomology, attracted to both the taxonomic and biological sides of insects. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1903. He served as president from 1911 to 1913. Eugene died in 1928 and his ashes were scattered on Plummers Island. A memorial plaque was installed on the Island in tribute to this great naturalist.
CARL SCHURZ SCOFIELD Carl was born in Bloomington, Minnesota, on February 5, 1875. He received a BSA degree at the University of Minnesota in 1900 and immediately joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1901, he completed a special course in wheat chemistry at Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. In 1902, he published a major paper on The Algerian durum wheats. He was made agriculturist in charge of irrigation in 1905, publishing a number of papers and special reports on the quality of irrigation water. Carl was a member of the Botanical Society of Washington and a member of the Cosmos Club. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1902 and terminated his membership in 1910. Carl married Emma Theresa Scott on September 8, 1903, and lived in Lanham, Maryland. They had three children, Francis Collins, John Darius, and Marcia Ann. Carl retired in 1945. He died August 28, 1966, and was buried in Atlantic, Maine.
HENRY W. SETZER
Henry was from Moline, Illinois. He earned his BS and MS degrees from the University of Utah and a PhD degree in zoology from the University of Kansas. He served in the Army during World War II and moved to Washington, D.C., in 1947. Henry joined the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History as an assistant mammal curator in 1948, associate curator in 1954, and became its curator in 1969. He held this position until his retirement in 1978. During his years with the museum, he collected and catalogued small mammals on expeditions to Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. He was an authority on the small mammals of South Africa. The gerbil, Gerbillurus setzeri, was named for him. Henry was a charter member and King Lion of the Germantown, Maryland, Lions Club and a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason and master of Pentalpha Masonic Lodge in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
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He was married to Elizabeth Freeman from California for 41 years and they had four daughters and four grandchildren. He died in Gainesville, Florida, on October 12, 1992, following a heart attack. Henry was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1952.
RAYMOND CORBETT SHANNON
Raymond was born in Washington, D.C., on October 4, 1894. Orphaned as a child, he was fortunate to have two outstanding entomologists, John R. Malloch and Frederick Knab, living in the home of his foster mother, Mrs. Susan McCormick. They helped direct his interests towards entomology. Not much is known of his early life, but he left school in 1912 and entered government work as a student assistant in Knab’s offi ce in the U.S. Bureau of Entomology. He was a born naturalist; bright, eager, and appreciative, and everyone was glad to aid him. Although Raymond specialized on the Diptera, two of his most helpful friends were the coleopterists E. A. Schwarz and H. S. Barber. Raymond often accompanied them to Plummers Island, Maryland, and became an adept student of entomology and collector of insects. He gradually advanced in the Bureau until his departure for college in 1916. All his friends in the Bureau helped him prepare for Cornell. His schooling was interrupted by service in the Sanitary Corps in World War I. He returned to government service in 1921 and received his BS degree from Cornell in 1925. During the next few years, he made expeditions to Panama to study mosquitoes, did graduate work at George Washington University, and studied insects of importance to public health in Argentina. In 1927, he was employed by the Rockefeller Foundation as a special member of the International Health Division to study the mosquitoes of Brazil, jungle yellow fever, and malaria transmitted by Anopheles gambiae. From Brazil he wrote in 1930 that “Since returning I made another trip and now have amoebiasis again, also hookworm, schizostomiasis, round worms, and giardia. This business of wading around for gambiae larvae gets into your blood in more ways than one.” In March 1930, he collected African A. gambiae in Natal, Brazil. His recommendations for exterminating these mosquitoes went unheeded at the time; when some years later the campaign was undertaken, it was at a much greater cost because of the extent of the area infested. In his early years he was interested in the taxonomy of syrphid fl ies, botfl ies, and blowfl ies; later he became more involved in the ecology of biting fl ies as vectors of diseases. His work on mosquitoes carried him from Brazil to Argentina, Peru, and Trinidad. He also went to Greece to study the Tabanidae. In some of these South American countries he investigated verruga fever. In 1938, he demonstrated the transmission of yellow fever by Haemagogus, Aedes leucocelaenus, and other mosquitoes in South America. Suffering from mosquito-borne dengue fever, pain caused by a tumor on his arm, and insomnia, Raymond died from an overdose of drugs on March 7, 1945, at the age of fi fty, and was buried in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. In a tribute to him, McAtee and Wade said he died “a martyr to the hazards of medical entomology.” Raymond was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1914 and was awarded an honorary membership in 1942.
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CORNELIUS LOTT SHEAR Cornelius was born in 1865. He studied at Albany State Normal School and New York State Normal School. In 1888, he taught high school in New York and Nebraska. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in 1897 and a Master’s degree in 1901, both from University of Nebraska, and then went to work at the Bureau of Plant Industry. In 1906, Cornelius moved to Washington, D.C. In 1923, he was appointed director of the Division of Mycology and Disease Survey. From 1927 to 1928, he went on a collecting expedition to Hawaii. Dörfelt and Heklau say that, while still a school teacher, Cornelius issued a set of exsiccati under the title New York Fungi, but they don’t give a date for it. He named several species of fungi. Cornelius was a member of Sigma Xi and was a charter member of the Washington, D.C., Alumni Chapter of Sigma Xi. Cornelius died in 1956. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1900 and terminated his membership in 1913.
STANWYN GERALD SHETLER Stan was born on October 11, 1933, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He grew up and attended schools nearby. His father was a minister and a school teacher, who founded and directed a K-12 parochial school. His interest in natural history began with bird watching in the sixth grade and was stimulated by his science teacher and fostered by his mother. Birding has been a lifelong avocation.
Stan came to the Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in 1962 directly from graduate studies at the University of Michigan, where he subsequently earned a PhD degree in systematic botany after completing his dissertation. He spent his whole professional career at the Smithsonian before retiring at the end of 1995. Earlier he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in 1955 and 1958 from Cornell University after fi rst attending Eastern Mennonite College (now University), Harrisonburg, Virginia. Beginning as an assistant curator, he rose to the rank of curator, with his curatorial area of responsibility being temperate and arctic North America, including, notably, the local fl ora of the Washington, D.C., region. From 1984 to 1994, he served as associate director and then deputy director of the National Museum of Natural History.
Stan’s botanical interests have been wide-ranging, but he is a recognized expert on the bellfl owers (genus Campanula) and the fl ora of the Arctic. His publications number well over 100 scientifi c, technical, and popular titles, including three books and the recent Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plants of the Washington-Baltimore Area (2 volumes, 2002, 2002). The books are on Russian botanical history (1968), a monograph on the evolution of the New World harebells (Campanula rotundifolia complex) (1982), and the popular Portraits of Nature: Paintings by Robert Bateman (1986), which accompanied a Smithsonian
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exhibition by the same title organized by him in 1987. The exhibition explored the diversity of nature through the Canadian artist’s work. He also edited the English translations of the last eight volumes of the 30-volume Flora of the USSR plus the general index volume. He is fi rst author of the Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Plummers Island, Maryland, which was published in 2006.
From the mid-60s to the mid-70s, Stan was executive secretary and then program director of the international Flora North America Program, which pioneered in the use of computers for taxonomic information and set the stage for the subsequent effort to prepare a modern treatise of North American plants. His research travels have taken him across North America and to parts of South and Central America, Europe, Asia (Caucasus, Siberia, Tuva), and Australia.
Stan has been a frequent lecturer, teacher, and consultant through the years. He has been active in various conservation and environmental causes. He has served on the board of the Piedmont Environmental Council (1985-88) and several terms (latest, 2006) on the board of directors of the Audubon Naturalist Society, including three years (1974-77) as president. He is a charter member (1982) of the Virginia Native Plant Society and has been serving on the state board of directors as Botany Chair (1996-2003) and director-at-large (2004-2006). He has taught plant identifi cation courses for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School off and on since 1963.
Honors include election as fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1994) for “contributions to the formation of electronic data banks and the computer registry of botanical specimens,” and fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences (2002). Upon retirement he was appointed botanist emeritus by the National Museum of Natural History. In 1995, he received the Paul Bartsch Medal, which is the Audubon Naturalist Society’s top award for contributions to natural history and conservation. In 1988, he was invited by the Chautauqua
Institution to present the featured lecture at the celebration of the late Roger Tory Peterson’s 80th birthday. He received the Piedmont Environmental Council’s Individual Award for Contributions to Environmental Improvement in 1981 for his role in drafting a Vegetation Preservation Policy for Loudoun County, Virginia.
Stan was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1970 and served as vice president from 1981 to 1984 and as president from 1984 to 1987. He lives in Sterling, Virginia, with his wife, Elaine. They have a son, Stephen, and a daughter, Lara, and one granddaughter.
CLARENCE RAYMOND SHOEMAKER Clarence was born in 1874. At the age of seven he moved to the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., and he spent most of his life in this family home. His interest in zoology began very early in life. He found when he entered George Washington University that his own studies had already carried him ahead of the curriculum then being taught. After a year in college he, therefore, took a position at the Smithsonian Institution, fi rst as a clerk in the International Exchanges section in 1902 and then in 1910, as a scientifi c aide in the Division of Marine, Aquatic, and Terrestrial Invertebrates. In 1916, he was involved in collecting coral and marine invertebrates in the Danish West Indies. He became assistant curator in 1921, and an associate curator of the division of marine invertebrates in 1942. His early interest had been in spiders and he gained a reputation in this fi eld even before coming to the invertebrate division.
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Clarence retired in 1944 at the age of 70, but continued as a research associate until his death on December 28, 1958. His scientifi c reports on the Amphipoda were worldwide in scope and he published about 70 papers in this fi eld. His meticulous and orderly manner of working left all his materials ready for a successor to continue his research and publish his unfi nished manuscripts after his death with scarcely a break. Clarence was active in many scientifi c and conservation organizations including the Biological Society of Washington, Washington Academy of Science, American Ornithologists Union, and American Academy for the Advancement of Science. In addition Clarence was a charter member of the American Society of Mammalogy and the Society of Systematic Zoology. Clarence was most involved, however, with the Audubon Naturalist Society and served as chairman for the fi eld committee in charge of arranging “outings” for almost 50 years. He also served on the executive committee for many years. He is best remembered for his extensive and complete record of the Society’s early history that is contained in a set of publications from 1902 and in hundreds of photographs of Club members and outings. His reminiscences of the changing Society and the Washington area are a treasured asset of the Audubon Naturalist Society. Clarence was elected as a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1912 and terminated his membership in 1942.
LESTER LEROY SHORT, JR. Lester was born in Port Chester, New York, on May 29, 1933. He received a BS degree at Cornell University in 1955. He was a student of Charles Sibley at Cornell University, where he received his PhD degree in 1959 in vertebrate zoology. He served as a scientifi c assistant at Cornell in vertebrate zoology from 1954 to 1959. Lester then became an instructor and assistant professor of biology at Adelphi University from 1960 to 1962. Lester was a Chapman fellow at the American Museum of Natural History from 1962 to 1963 and then became chief of the bird section of what was then the Bird and Mammal Laboratories of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1963, remaining in that position until 1966 when he moved back to the American Museum of Natural History. At that institution he did some fi eld work in South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacifi c, and became Lamont Curator for Birds from 1966 to 1997. During the period 1970 to 1997, he also served as adjunct professor of biology for Cornell University. He became a student of avian hybridization, concentrating on the fl ickers (genus Colaptes) of North America. This led to an extensive interest in woodpeckers of the world. It also led him to study and conduct fi eld work in the contact zone between eastern and western congeners across riparian corridors in the Great
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Plains. Lester authored the books Woodpeckers of the World, The Lives of Birds, and Toucans, Barbets, and Honeyguides (with J. Horne). He also has authored over 250 scientifi c and scholarly articles and reports. Lester was named to the American Ornithologists Union Checklist Committee and appointed its secretary in 1975. He resigned in 1984 after the sixth edition was published. His publications are based on bird research on six continents, many in conjunction with Jennifer Horne, his Kenya-based ornithologist spouse. Eventually he concentrated his work in Kenya, Africa, and studied various aspects of the biology of piciform birds--honeyguides and later barbets and toucans. He essentially became a resident of Africa in his later working and early retirement years. Lester was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1964 and terminated his membership in 1972.
LAURENCE EDGAR SKOG Larry was born on April 9, 1943, in Duluth, Minnesota, and was the oldest of four children. His parents operated a dairy farm and a trucking business. Larry was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, Duluth from where he received a BA degree in botany with a minor in chemistry in 1965. Immediately after receiving his degree, he left for Mexico on a plant-collecting trip. In the fall of 1965, he entered graduate school at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, and in 1968 received an MS degree in botany by writing a thesis on the fl owering plant genus Coriaria (Coriariaceae). For his thesis work Larry traveled and collected extensively in the Andes of South America. While at the University of Connecticut, he met Judith E. Troop, a fellow botany student, and they were married in 1968. Larry applied for admittance to study horticultural plant taxonomy of the Gesneriaceae (African violet family) at the L. H. Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University. But in the meantime he was awarded a Horticultural Interchange Fellowship to study at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland, which allowed him to visit several botanical gardens and herbaria in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe from 1968 to 1969. Returning to Ithaca, New York, in late 1969, Larry resumed graduate study and undertook more fi eldwork for his thesis research, especially in the Caribbean region. Larry completed his PhD degree in 1972 in plant taxonomy with a minor in entomology. Both Larry and his wife interviewed for the same position in the biology department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Judy got the position and they moved to Northern Virginia in August, 1972. Larry received a position as assistant editor on the Flora North America Program in the Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution. That Program at the Smithsonian only lasted until April 1973, and then for six months Larry worked as a contractor at U.S. Department of Agriculture checking the names of the plants being investigated for anti-cancer research. In September 1973, a curatorial position in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian became available, which was offered to and accepted by Larry. He continued his research on tropical plants, especially the Gesneriaceae at the Smithsonian.
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Since 1973, he has undertaken fi eldwork in several parts of the world, including India, Australia, New Zealand, China, and several times in Central and South America. He has been involved in several fl oristic and revisionary projects. From 1987 to 1992, Larry was chair of the Department of Botany, and continued as a curator and research scientist, and director of the Floristics Offi ce in the Department until his retirement in 2003. Larry is a member, and has been an offi cer in several professional societies, including serving as a member of the board of directors of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy-USA, a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, secretary-treasurer of the Association for Tropical Biology (1981-85), secretary for the Organization for Flora Neotropica (1993-96) while serving on that Board, and vice president and president of the Botanical Society of Washington. He was honored by his alma mater for his scientifi c achievements by induction into the Academy of Science and Engineering in 2003. Academically, Larry has advised several graduate students, was appointed as an adjunct professor in biology at George Mason University, and was an honorary professor of the Open Laboratory of Plant Systematics of the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Larry and Judy have one son, Jeremy Owen, born in 1980. Larry was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1982, and has been a member of the research committee, the board of managers, and since 1997 has been the Club’s archivist.
RICHARD GATES SLATTERY Gates was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, on January 13, 1918. His parents and he lived there until he started school as a six-year old and the family moved to Washington, D.C. There Gates soon met the Craighead twins, Frank and John, who lived only one block away. They went to the same grammar school, and at the age of 13, he found his fi rst arrowhead, while with Frank and John canoeing near Seneca Island, Maryland. That event was so exciting that it turned his interest to archeology to last throughout his life. His friendship with the twins continued through many Boy Scout, falconry, hunting, camping, and fi shing activities. After high school, the friendship drifted apart as Gates’ interest and contacts with archeologists at the Smithsonian strengthened. Gates was offered a summer fi eld job in archeology in Kansas and Missouri as a crew member under Dr. Waldo Wedel. This job continued for three more summers while he attended George Washington University as a part time student. George Washington did not have a major in archeology at that time, so he majored in geology, took courses in most of the other sciences, and received a BA degree. In 1941, World War II was looming and archeology had low priority, so Gates signed up for a ten-week engineering course at Johns Hopkins University. The course ended the last of September 1941 and he was offered a job at Martin Aircraft Company in Baltimore, at seventy-fi ve cents per hour as a fi nal inspector on the construction of B-26 Bombers, a job Gates held until the end of the war. By that time he was a foreman, but after the big layoff of 10,000 persons he was reduced to a fi rst class inspector. The draft was still on, so he enlisted in the Army for 18 months, most of that time was spent in the occupation forces in Japan. When his time was up Gates was discharged as a sergeant in the Army Air Corps. Gates then was employed as a research assistant to Dr. Greg at the Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, D.C. When his agreed term of 18 months was up, he was employed as a management analyst at the Headquarters Chemical Corps and worked there until the Army reorganized and Gates was transferred to the
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Weapons Command Headquarters in Rock Island, Illinois, where he retired in 1973. During that time in Washington, Gates met Marjorie Alberts on an Appalachian Trail Club hike and later married her in December 1948. They had two sons. The oldest, Bob moved to New Mexico, and became a well known builder of fi ne homes, but was tragically killed at age 53 in a truck accident on March 3, 2003. Their other son, Edwin, became a senior environmental engineer working for Stanley Consultants in the Des Moines offi ce. Gates and Marjorie have four grandchildren. Gates was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1961 and attended several meetings on Plummers Island. He always thought, however, that he became a member sort of through “the back door.” His wife, Marjorie, had a degree in biology and worked fi rst at the Smithsonian Institution and later transferred to the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge, where she worked for Mr. Neil Hotchkiss, a botanist there and a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. In the 1950s, he became close friends with Mr. Hotchkiss and with others who worked at Patuxent. Since no women could join the exclusive Club at Plummers Island at that time, Mr. Hotchkiss nominated Gates as a member. In 1963, Gates was transferred to the Weapons Command at Rock Island Illinois, where he continued the same work until 1973, when he retired and became employed as an archeologist with the Offi ce of the State Archeologist at Iowa City, Iowa. There he preformed all duties of a senior archeologist until he retired a second time with 20 more years experience of Iowa archeology behind him. Gates wrote many large reports and publications on archeology. During the 1980s, he and his wife traveled the world including 22 countries and maintained a farm of 110 acres in Wisconsin. Although Gates lives in Iowa, he often visits the Winslow prehistoric archeological site in Montgomery County, Maryland, and keeps in close contact with the Archeological Society of Maryland. Gates and his friend, Hugh Stabler, discovered this Winslow site when they were boys and worked there in 1940 to 1941, and again in 1959 to 1961. Gates visited this site with Maryland archeologists several times in 2002 and 2003. Gates terminated his membership in the Club when he moved to Iowa in 1973. When visiting Plummers Island one time, he walked one of the trails to explore the Island and with the eye of an archeologist he saw unmistakable evidence of previous Indian occupation. Small fl akes of fl int were on the ground where the previous occupants were touching up and making arrowheads or other objects. Gates never mentioned this because he thought this was too far out of the interest of the majority of biologists attending the function that day.
ALBERT CHARLES SMITH
Al was born in Springfi eld, Massachusetts, on April 5, 1906. Completing high school there, he attended Columbia University and received an AB degree in 1926 and a PhD degree in 1933. In his fi nal undergraduate year he studied at the New York Botanical Garden, and became a staff member in 1928. His principal mentor there was Henry Allen Gleason. Nathaniel Lord Britton, founder and director of the Garden, was also a sponsor. These men pointed him towards a career in tropical systematic botany. Al’s fi rst tropical trips were made with Ellsworth Paine
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Killip, a long-time Washington Biologists’ Field Club member, to Colombia in 1926 and 1927 and Peru and Brazil in 1929. While working on their collections he spent extended periods in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institution, frequently visiting Plummers Island with Killip. A later fi eld trip to British Guiana, was made in 1937 and 1938 with a group sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History. However, Al had made a collecting trip to Fiji in 1933 and 19 34, and his botanical studies at the New York Botanical Garden were divided between South American and Pacifi c plants. Elmer Drew Merrill (director of the New York Botanical Garden (1930-35) and later of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard) was an important infl uence. In 1940, Al left New York to become curator of the Arnold Arboretum Herbarium at Harvard, working there until 1948, when he again returned to Washington and the Smithsonian Institution (1948-63). At the Smithsonian Al served as curator in the Department of Botany, then as director of the National Museum of Natural History (1958-62), and briefl y as assistant secretary (1962-63), with an interlude (1956-58) as a program director at the National Science Foundation. Leaving Washington for Honolulu in 1963, Al served at the University of Hawaii as director of research and professor of botany until 1970, then moved to the University of Massachusetts until 1976. Universities were at that time enforcing retirement at what now seem ridiculously early ages. In 1976, he returned permanently to Honolulu, serving the National Tropical Botanical Garden as editorial consultant. The Garden sponsored and published his fi ve-volume Flora Vitiensis Nova (1979-91), summarizing his Fijian research. In 1991, Al “retired” in Honolulu. He died there in 1999. A member and sometimes offi cer of several national and international biological organizations, Al also was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1944) and the National Academy of Sciences (since 1963). He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1948, served as secretary from 1956 to 1959, and was president from 1962 to 1964. He was awarded an honorary membership in 1982.
HUGH MCCORMICK SMITH Hugh, son of Thomas and Cornelia Smith, was born in Washington, D.C., on November 21, 1865. Hugh attended high school in Washington, and went on to earn his degree from Georgetown University in 1888. He was intrigued by ichthyology, which motivated him to continue his post graduate medical study in New York (LLD). He worked for the U.S. Fish Commission as an assistant in 1886, and from 1897 to 1903, he was the assistant in charge of scientifi c inquiry. He also became the director of the biological lab for the U.S. Fish Commission in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Hugh was co-special agent in charge of the fi sheries 10th Census. He was also the deputy commissioner of fi sheries in 1903, and worked as the editor of the Bureau of Fisheries in 1904. He was a member of the medical faculty at Georgetown University from 1888 to 1902, and was a professor of normal histology from 1895 to 1902.
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Hugh’s love of fi sh drew him to other countries to study the many aspects of the area’s fi sheries. At various international fi shing congresses he was a representative for the United States. He published numerous reports and papers on ichthyology, economic fi sheries, and pisciculture as well as contributing to technological and popular periodicals. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was awarded an honorary membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1921. Hugh lived in Washington, D.C., until his death in 1941.
LYMAN BRADFORD SMITH Lyman was born September 11, 1904, in Winchester, Massachusetts. He was mostly home-schooled and became interested in natural history and collecting. He went to Harvard in 1921, where he wrestled (he continued wrestling twice a week until 65), went collecting on the Gaspé Peninsula with Fernald in 1923, and earned an AB degree cum laude in 1925. He continued in the university, earning an AM degree in 1928 and traveled to Brazil (1928-29) on a Sheldon Travelling Fellowship. He married in 1929, and they traveled to the European herbaria on their honeymoon. He earned a PhD degree in 1930 under B. L. Robinson and was awarded a senior assistantship at the Gray Herbarium. He continued studies in Europe in 1933 and 1935, and focused on bromeliads and received promotions. Eventually he became the sole curator in 1943 and began work on Begoniaceae. He came to the U.S. National Herbarium in October 1947 as an associate curator. His research was prodigious with many collecting trips to South America and hundreds of papers, focused not only on Bromeliaceae, but also Velloziaceae and Begoniaceae. He was famous for his ability to identify unknown specimens. He was curator of phanerogams from 1956 to 1966 and then senior botanist. He offi cially retired in 1974 at the age of 70, but continued to work productively every day for almost 20 more years. He collected more than 16,000 plant specimens, had 519 publications, including books, and named 1,785 new taxa. He was honored by the generic name Lymania (type: L. smithii Read 1984) and about 50 species names, including Miconia luctatoris Wurdack (1962, “of the wrestler” since he continued wrestling into his 60s!). His name is in the author citation of 2,145 species names. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1948 and terminated his membership in 1967 He died on May 4, 1997, in Manhatten, Kansas.
ERNEST REEVES SOHNS Ernest was born October 3, 1917, in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. His early years were spent in southern Ohio near Cincinnati. He graduated from Miami University in 1940 with an AB degree, and from Iowa State College in 1941 with an MS degree. From 1941 to 1946, he served in the United States Army and, after discharge from active duty, he enrolled in Indiana University. Ernest received a PhD degree in botany in 1949 (taxonomy and morphology of the Gramineae). He was employed as an assistant professor of biology at the College of William and Mary from 1949 to 1951. In 1951, he joined the Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, as an associate curator of grasses. During the years from 1951 to 1956, he conducted fi eld explorations in various parts of Mexico collecting,
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cataloging, and describing new species of grasses. The results of this work were published in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences and the New York Botanical Garden Memoirs. The highlight of his Smithsonian years was having the rare Mexican grass genus (Sohnsia) named for him by Airy Shaw of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. His agrostological work ceased in 1956, and, thereafter, he served in the following government agencies: Department of the Army in biological and chemical warfare, 1956-63; National Science Foundation in science information and international scientifi c programs, 1963-73; and Department of State, Scientifi c Attache, U.S. Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden, 1973-79. He retired in 1979. He continued his life-long interest in biology by applying best management practices to his tree farm near Charlottesville, Virginia. Ernest died in 2001. Ernest was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Club in 1952.
MARIA ALMA SOLIS Alma was born on February 9, 1956, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Four years later her family moved back to Brownsville, Texas, and in 1974 she entered Texas Southmost College as an English major. In her freshman year she was inspired by Barbara Warburton, professor of biology at the college and director of Rancho del Cielo Biological Station in northeastern Mexico, to become a biologist. She was to learn many years later that Brownsville is an important collecting and type locality. In 1978, Alma received her BS degree in secondary science education at the University of Texas at Austin. Her interest at that time was plants and she worked for two years at the Rare Plant Study Center in the Lundell Herbarium as an undergraduate. She entered the graduate biology program at University of Texas at Austin and completed a thesis entitled A biogeographical comparison of the moths of Liquidambar - Eastern US and Northeastern Mexico. After realizing that the majority of moths she collected were new to science, Alma became a doctoral student in Systematic Entomology at the University of Maryland at College Park to work on pyraloids, a group of economically important moths that are pests on crops and stored products. Alma began her professional career in 1986 when she was hired as an entomologist in the Systematic Entomology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and, upon completion of her PhD degree in 1989, was promoted to research entomologist with emphasis in the Pyraloidea or snout moths, a group with over 16,000 described species. She has been heavily committed to upgrading the Pyraloidea collection at the National Museum of Natural History, the second largest in the world, to 20th century standards. She also is involved in a long-term project on the Pyraloidea of Costa Rica with the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad. In addition, she has invested major time to locating and studying type specimens of neotropical pyraloids in European
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museums in order to stabilize the nomenclature. She was a contributor to the pyraloid check list of the Atlas of Neotropical Lepidoptera and published the fi rst cladistic analysis in the Pyraloidea and one of the fi rst few in the Lepidoptera. She is co-editor of a Festschrift in honor of the curator of Pyraloidea at the Natural History Museum, London, and organized and published the proceedings of a symposium on insect biodiversity in the American Entomologist. In 1991, she received a Certifi cate of Merit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for outstanding performance. In tandem with her fi eldwork in northern Mexico, she assisted in the development of the organismal program for the South Texas Engineering, Math, and Science program for high school students funded by National Aeronatical Space Administration in collaboration with the Gorgas Science Foundation, Inc. of Brownsville, Texas. In 1999, she was associate dean of the College of Science, Math, and Technology and chairperson of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at Brownsville as part of Intergovernmental Personnel Act. She is a member of several societies including the Entomological Society of Washington (president, 1997), Lepidopterists’ Society (executive council, 1994-97), and Tropical Lepidoptera Association (advisory council). She is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Brownsville and an alumna of Leadership Texas. Alma was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1996. She began serving on the research committee in 1997, was chair of this committee from 1999 to 2006, and served as president from 2005 to 2007. She enjoys hiking and reading classical literature.
ROBERT JOHN SORENGRob was born in Evanston, Illinois,
on December 9, 1952. His family moved to Eugene, Oregon, in 1961, where he learned to enjoy outdoor pursuits, including, fi shing, hiking, camping, skiing, and studying nature. His college degrees include a BS degree at Oregon State in 1978, and MS and PhD degrees at New Mexico State Universities in 1980 and 1986. He conducted postdoctoral research at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Cornell, all focused on ecology and systematics. He currently is a research associate in the department of botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Rob’s research interests focus on the taxonomy, character evolution, and breeding systems of Poaceae (Gramineae; grasses; about 11,000 species), especially of the cool season grasses (Pooideae; about 3,500 species) and the genus Poa (bluegrasses; over 500 species). He employs molecular and traditional characters at all levels within the family, and deals extensively with nomenclature and classifi cation in the family.
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Among his major contributions to the fi eld continues to be the data basing of grass nomenclature and taxonomy in TROPICOS (Missouri Botanical Garden’s on-line taxonomic database (which now has almost 80,000 names of grass taxa, original publications, types, and secondary literature citations, and links to specimens, maps, and images, synonymy, and other databases); as chief editor of all subfamilies, revising Pooideae genera, and updating the Catalogue of New World Grasses (published in four volumes in the Contribution U.S. National Herbarium, 2000 to 2004); and contributions to higher classifi cation of the grasses in the Botanical Review (1998), monocot symposia (1998, 2002), and the Grass Phylogeny Working Group (2000, 2001), and the genus Poa.
Rob has published over 50 scientifi c papers. His research and collection trips have taken him to 17 countries, with extended collecting trips in the western hemisphere from the high Canadian arctic to Tierra del Fuego, across the Mediterranean from Spain to eastern Turkey, three trips around China, and to Australia. He recently published a revision of the Poa for the Flora of China and the Flora of North America. His positions in scientifi c organizations include president (2001-02) and vice president (2000-01) of the Botanical Society of Washington, and project editor for Poaceae in Flora of North America (1997-99).
Rob is married to Nancy Lemley Soreng and has two daughters; Hannah and Mattea. His personal interests include whitewater rafting, canoeing, cross-country skiing, and nature photography. Rob was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2004.
PAUL J. SPANGLER
Paul was born on November 21, 1924, in York, Pennsylvania. He was interested in biology since he was a young child. Through the years, his father, mother, and many good teachers encouraged him to study nature and spent time showing him the beauty and wonders of it all. After spending three years in the Navy during World War II, Paul attended Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania with fi nancial help from the GI Bill. After receiving a BA degree in 1949, he decided to go on to graduate school and majored in entomology at Ohio University. After two pleasant years studying with and working as an assistant to Dr. William Stehr, he was granted an MS degree in entomology/zoology in 1951 (thesis, Aquatic Beetles of Ohio). He went on to the University of Kansas to study under Dr. Hungerford and Dr. Beamer. During the two years at the University of Kansas, he received a museum assistantship and most excellent curatorial training. The summer of 1952 was spent at the University of Michigan Biological Station as Dr. Hungerford’s assistant for a fi eld course in general entomology, which was a rare treat. During that summer Paul collected and published his fi rst description of a new species, Brychius hungerfordi, which is now on the federal endangered species list. Unfortunately and unknown to him, both Dr. Hungerford and Dr. Beamer were planning to retire in a few years and he was left without a major professor with an interest in aquatics. When the University of Missouri, through Dr. Wilbur Enns, offered him a position as an instructor with enough of a stipend that his family and he could eat, pay rent, etc., along with the opportunity to pursue his PhD degree, they moved to Columbia, Missouri. After he fi nished course work, he became an associate professor and a most rewarding aspect of that time was the opportunity to establish and teach a graduate course in aquatic insects. In 1957, he and his family moved to Juneau, Alaska, when he accepted a position as a fi shery biologist
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with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Although they planned to stay in Alaska for a much longer time, they left Juneau in September 1958 for the only job that could entice him from Alaska--an entomological position at the U.S. National Museum with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service. In 1960, he received his PhD degree in entomology/botany/zoology from the University of Missouri. In July 1962, he transferred to the Smithsonian Institute, Department of Zoology, Division of Insects, as associate curator of Coleoptera, especially aquatic Coleoptera. The Museum and Dr. Jack Clarke enthusiastically backed his wish to do extensive fi eld work in order to study the fresh water biota. With support from various grants, he was able to spend time in the fi eld in the United States, Mexico, Central America, the Antilles, South America, eastern and southern Africa, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. He married Phyllis Miller in 1948 and they had one son, Richard. Paul has been an active member of Washington Biologists’ Field Club since his election to the Club in 1961. He served as chairman of the house and grounds committee from 1962 to 1973.
PAUL CARPENTER STANDLEY Paul was born March 21, 1884, in Avalon, Missouri. His education began at Drury College in Springfi eld, Missouri, (there he published his fi rst paper!) and continued at New Mexico State College where he got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1907 and 1908. He continued at his alma mater as an assistant botanist from 1908 to 1909. In 1909, he became a botanist at the U.S. National Museum where he remained until 1928. During this period he published an astonishing variety of papers, including Flora of New Mexico (1915) with Wooton, a number of families for the Flora of North America (1916-24), Flora of the District of Columbia (1919) with A. S. Hitchcock, his infl uential Trees and Shrubs of Mexico (1926) with over 1,700 pages, and his Flora of the Panama Canal Zone (1928). In 1928, he moved to the Field Museum in Chicago and continued producing an astonishing number of publications, such as Flora of Costa Rica (1937-40) with 1,616 pages. In 1950, he moved to the Escuela Agricola Panamericana and remained there until 1957 when he retired to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where he continued to work until his death June 2, 1963. Stafl eu and Cowan (1986) characterized him as “prolifi c botanist, collector and student of the New World fl oras, botanical explorer of Central and Western North America.” He was author of 5,712 species names, including transfers, the fi rst ones published in 1914. Three genera, Standleya Brade (1932), Standleyacanthus Leonard (1952) and Standleyanthus King and Robinson (1971), and 222 binomials were named for him, the fi rst being Acacia standleyi Safford (1914) and the last Palicourea standleyana C. M. Taylor (1989). He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1915 and terminated his membership in 1930.
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BRUCE ALAN STEIN The earliest exposure to what would become Bruce’s professional calling as a biologist was from the back of the family station wagon as his family crisscrossed the wide open landscapes of the western United States. Born on November 22, 1955, in Long Beach, California, childhood family vacations centered around national parks and monuments--from the best known to the most obscure. These trips sharpened his sense of wonder for the natural world and introduced him to some of the basic concepts of ecology. Back home this interest was nurtured by proximity to the sea. Netting small crabs was a highlight of family trips to the rocky shores of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, while the barnacle and limpet-encrusted canal wall in front of his Naples Island home yielded various creatures, including a beautiful pet sea slug (Navinex inermis). A freshman year summer job as a U.S. Forest Service backcountry ranger sparked his interest in plants. He was fortunate to be part of a thriving natural history program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, headed by the inspirational naturalist and marine mammal expert Ken Norris. Although Bruce did not make a conscious choice to become a botanist, classmates began referring to him as such in recognition of his increasing profi ciency in plant identifi cation. Who was he to argue? As a senior year project, he directed a National Science Foundation-funded undergraduate survey of a desert mountain range in the eastern Mojave (the Granite Mountains), which brought him into contact with Robert Thorne of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. An exceptionally gracious man, Thorne was willing to share his friendship and knowledge, and inspired Bruce to continue with botany professionally. During a year’s sojourn through Central and South America following college, Bruce was bitten hard by the tropical bug, and decided to pursue his PhD degree in tropical botany. Brazenly writing to Peter Raven - director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, the ranking fi gure in California botany, and a towering fi gure in tropical botany and conservation - Bruce received a cordial response inviting him to work with him as a graduate student through Washington University. At the suggestion of Al Gentry, another botanical mentor, Bruce decided to study Andean lobelioids, a tremendously diverse yet poorly known group of cloud forest plants, and in particular taxonomy of the genus Centropogon. Working with Raven as his graduate advisor strengthened his determination to do something that applied his botanical training to the protection of tropical ecosystems. When shortly before fi nishing his dissertation in 1987, a position as Latin American botanist opened with The Nature Conservancy, Bruce jumped at the chance and relocated to Washington, D.C. Within six months he had moved into the position of director of the Conservancy’s Latin America Science Program, a position he held until 1994. Starting that year he began focusing on more biodiversity issues of the United States, which culminated in the book Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2000). Also in 2000, he became vice president for Programs of Nature Serve, a new non-profi t organization that was created to carry on the biological inventory and assessment work formerly conducted by The Nature Conservancy. His interests continued to focus on documenting and assessing the status of species and ecosystems, and analyzing patterns in diversity as a way of informing conservation efforts and improving land use decisions. He was especially interested in transforming biological data into publications and websites that enable environmental policy-makers and the public to better understand and appreciate the value of our vanishing biological resources. Bruce was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2001.
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LEONHARD A. STEJNEGER Leonhard grew up in Bergen, Norway, where he was born on October 30, 1851. He was a philosophy and law student at the University of Christina, where he also received his PhD degree. He became interested in the natural sciences and in his early twenties Leonhard published several handbooks on mammals and birds native to his country. In 1881, he went on an expedition to the United States to Bering Island, Kamchatka, and the Commander Islands in the North Pacifi c, where he joined the Smithsonian Institution. On this expedition from 1884 to 1889, he was collecting birds for the U.S. National Museum as assistant curator of birds. He wrote the majority of the volumes on birds of the Standard Natural History. Then in 1889, he became the curator of reptiles, and until June 1, 1911, he was the head curator of biology. In 1895, he revisited the Commander Islands continually to take part in a study on fur seals for the Fish Commission, again in 1896 as a member of the Fur Seal Commission, and again in 1922 for the Department of Commerce. He was a delegate from the Smithsonian Institution to the Zoological Congress seven times and to the International Ornithologists Congress in 1905. He continually studied museum administration and fi nances in Europe from 1901 to 1913. Leonhard was a life member of the Bergen Museum, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Academy of Science of Christiana and Washington, and a fellow of the American Ornithologists Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of the Foreign Zoological Society of London, Ornithological Society of Bavaria, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Biological Society of Washington, and the American Society of Ichthyology and Herpetology. He also had the honor of commander on nomenclature and of permanent commander of the International Zoological Congress. He belonged to the Association of American Geographers and was elected to Sigma Xi. Leonhard was an honorary member of the California Academy of Sciences, British Ornithological Union, American Society of Mammalogists, and also the German Ornithological Society. In 1906, he became a Decorated Knight First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. In 1923, Leonhard was the recipient of the Walker Grand Prize given to him by the Boston Society of Natural History. Leonhard was an accomplished writer and published a variety of literature. Most of his papers were published from 1873 to 1936, which included studies about birds, fur seals, herpetology of Puerto Rico, and other groups studied in foreign countries. The Stejneger’s beaked whale is named for him. Leonhard died on February 28, 1943, and services were held at All Souls Unitarian Church, Washington, D.C. Leonhard became an honorary member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1921.
WILLIAM LOUIS STERN Bill was born on September 10, 1926, in Paterson, New Jersey, where he spent his childhood. He graduated in 1944 from the agricultural curriculum at Paterson Central High School and immediately enlisted in the U.S. Navy where he saw duty on Guam. Following his discharge in 1946, he enrolled in what was called the National Farm School and Junior College, now Delaware Valley College. After one year he enrolled in Rutgers University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in botany in 1950. He was accepted as a graduate student and teaching assistant at the University of Illinois in September, 1950, and received a master’s degree in 1951 and a PhD degree in 1953, both in botany. His fi rst professional position was as instructor in the School of Forestry,
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Yale University. While there he conducted studies in wood anatomy as related to the phylogeny of angiosperms, and taught courses in wood anatomy and identifi cation, tropical forestry, and plant microtechnique. He also edited the journal Tropical Woods and curated what was then the world’s largest collection of wood. In 1960, he joined the Smithsonian Institution as curator in the new Division of Wood Anatomy, later changed to Plant Anatomy. In 1963, he took a leave of absence to join the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and spent the year with his family at the Forest Products Research Institute near Los Baños in the Philippines. Upon returning from the Philippines he became acting chairman, then chairman of the Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution. While at the Smithsonian he was curator of the wood collection and continued his research on the phylogeny of angiosperms using information from vegetative plant anatomy. In 1967, he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland as professor. There he coordinated the general botany program and taught plant anatomy, plant microtechnique, and tropical forestry. He continued his studies of plant anatomy and phylogeny. From 1978 to 1979, he served in Washington as program chairman for systematic biology at the National Science Foundation. In 1979, he joined the faculty of the University of Florida as chairman of the Department of Botany and professor. He gave up the chairmanship in 1985 and returned to teaching and research. He changed his research focus in Florida and began a continuing series of studies on the vegetative anatomy and relationships among members of the orchid family. During his career Bill has undertaken considerable fi eld work collecting wood specimens with herbarium vouchers and orchids and for this purpose has visited Panama, the Philippines, Dominica, the western United States, Jamaica, and the Florida Keys. Bill edited the Plant Science Bulletin, the monograph series of the Torrey Botanical Club, and was founding editor of Biotropica. He was married to the late Flory Stern, who died February 6, 1999. They had two children: Paul Elihu, an attorney, and Susan Myra, a horticulturist. He had fi ve grandchildren: four boys and one girl. Bill lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he raises orchids, some for research and some for pleasure. Bill is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London and other biological organizations. Bill was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1963.
BRENT WILLIAM STEURY Brent was born December 19, 1961, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and shortly thereafter moved to Bluffton, Indiana, with his father William Joseph and mother Rebecca. The oldest of seven children, Brent has always felt a close affi nity to nature, perhaps stemming from his Amish family lineage. He spent his childhood fi shing for bass on local farm ponds, building his collection of butterfl ies and moths, which won fi rst prize in his fi fth grade science fair, and wandering the surrounding corn fi elds in search of Native American artifacts. In 1986, Brent graduated from the University of South Carolina at Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in marine science with an emphasis in biology. During his summer break from classes Brent was employed by the Indiana Department of Fish and Game conducting creel surveys and as an interpretive naturalist for Indiana State Parks. After graduation he severed as a Peace Corps volunteer with the Parks and Wildlife Program in Guatemala, and then headed north to work on commercial crab and fi shing vessels in the Bering Sea as a biological observer contracted to the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game. The call of warmer weather lead Brent to the border of Bolivia and Brazil where he spent six months inventorying fi sh along the Guapore River
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before entering his federal career with the National Park Service in 1995 as a biologist for National Capital Parks-East. In 2003, he accepted the position of natural resources program manager for another unit of the National Park Service, the George Washington Memorial Parkway, where he currently oversees all aspects of the park’s inventory and monitoring program and serves as regional representative to the National Inventory and Monitoring Advisory Committee. Brent’s personal research interests have focused on the distribution of threatened and endangered vascular plants on the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. In conjunction with his research Brent has authored 14 journal articles, numerous technical reports, and discovered more than a dozen vascular plants that were new records for the fl oras of Maryland, Virginia, or the District of Columbia. Brent was elected to membership of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2006.
JAMES OSBORNE STEVENSON Jim was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 16, 1908. Jim became interested in birds early in life, his fi rst known fi eld notes dating from 1923. He often went bird watching in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, along the shore of Lake Michigan, and at the Cook County Forest Preserve. He graduated from high school in 1925 and that summer hitchhiked with a friend to southern Illinois to meet ornithologist Robert Ridgway. Their efforts led to a day of bird watching with that famous scientist. After high school, Jim moved on to the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. He transferred to Occidental College in Los Angeles, California, and graduated from there with a BA degree in biology in 1930. He conducted research relating to bird ecology and physiology at the Baldwin Bird Research Laboratory under S. Charles Kendeigh at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and received his MA degree in biology in 1932. He continued his studies at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California at Berkeley from 1931 to 1934. In 1934, Jim was hired to collect bird specimens for the Arizona State Museum, and next worked with the Iowa Fish and Game Commission studying wetlands. From 1935 to 1936, he supervised wildlife conservation projects in state parks of eight southwestern states under the direction the National Park Service in Oklahoma, as well as working with the Civilian Conservation Corps to assess habitats in potential park sites. He moved to Washington, D.C., and was employed to supervise fi eld biologists who were researching problems in national parks. He became the fi rst refuge manager of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas under the Bureau of Biological Survey. There he spent much of his time observing, studying, and photographing whooping cranes. He took the fi rst ever color fi lms of their courtship dances, and published a number of scientifi c and public interest articles on these cranes. In 1943, he published an article called Will Bugles Blow No More? about their endangerment. From 1941 to 1943, Jim became assistant chief of the Section of National Park Wildlife for the Fish and Wildlife Service. He served as executive offi cer aboard the USS Alnitah in the South and Western Pacifi c regions of World War II from 1943 to 1945. He used any free time, of course, to
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observe exotic birds. Upon his return in 1946, he worked again for the Fish and Wildlife Service, this time as a member of the fi rst river basins study team. Until 1959, he continued working on surveys of water resource development projects to determine the impact on the wildlife and fi sh and to determine ways of reducing harm and increasing the benefi ts coming out of these projects. He became assistant chief of the Division of River Basin Studies and helped create the fi rst wetlands protection programs in the prairie pothole region. He started to work in the fi eld of legislation; four of the most noteworthy acts he contributed to being the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, the Bald Eagle Act, and the Endangered Species Act of 1966. He also did a large amount of work on the publication Compilation of Federal Laws Relating to the Conservation and Development of our Nation’s Fish and Wildlife Resources. He retired from his position as chief of the Offi ce of Legislation in 1970. Jim held positions in many professional organizations, becoming a charter member of The Wildlife Society, member of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1927 and elected member in 1948, member of the Cooper Ornithological Society in 1928 and life member starting in 1978, member of the Wilson Ornithological Society in 1933, member of the Association of Field Ornithologists in 1969, and member of the Cosmos Club. He wrote over 40 articles, most about birds, for Audubon Magazine, The Auk, Condor, Wilson Bulletin, Wildlife Society Bulletin, the Atlantic Naturalist, and others. He also wrote a memoir called Which Reminds Me in 1990. Jim liked to travel and be active throughout his life, and he made trips to many parts of the globe. These destinations include many parts of North America, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. He liked to return to the same areas after a time to observe how the wildlife and habitats had changed. Jim received the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of Interior. When asked for one word to describe him, John Gottschalk said “integrity.” Jim was known for his extensive network of friends. He made a point to keep in touch with them, sending out cards for someone’s special occasion almost everyday, and he often included interesting articles, cartoons, and books. He often signed these letters “Keep the faith and think clean thoughts.” He is remembered as being quite a gentleman--courteous, thoughtful, and generous. He also was an avid hunter of grouse and waterfowl, heading out each fall with friends to the Midwest, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and Canada. He was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1949. He served as treasurer during the 1960s, and was on the fi nance committee at the end of his life. He was named an honorary member in 1989 after 40 years of participation and service. His visits to Plummers Island and with other members of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club were frequent. Jim died of a stroke on October 14, 1991. After he died friends spread his ashes from the Island into the Potomac River, as he wished. A plaque was installed on the Island in memory of this popular and active member.
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ROBERT E. STEWART Bob was born on April 16, 1913, in Kansas City, Missouri, and was raised in Grimes, Iowa, where he graduated from high school in 1932. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Iowa in 1936 and received an MS degree in zoology from University of Michigan in 1937. He conducted post-graduate work there on the life history of the common yellowthroat. Bob was a World War II veteran, stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1942 with the Naval Medical Corps. Bob’s entire professional career was as a wildlife research biologist with the federal government. He began with the Bureau of Biological Survey, which later became the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. From 1940 to 1960, Bob was stationed at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where he completed signifi cant research on bird populations of Maryland particularly waterfowl of the Chesapeake Bay, and small bird populations in Maine. He was a member of the 1955 expedition to fi nd the breeding grounds of whooping cranes in the Northwest Territory of Canada. In 1960, he transferred to the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown, North Dakota. As a research scientist he was a pioneer in plant and animal ecology, and authored 87 publications. He was the writer of several books, including Birds of Maryland and Washington, DC, and Breeding Birds of North Dakota. While gathering data on breeding birds of North Dakota, he literally traveled to every county and township in the state. His research in North Dakota included the ecology of prairie wetlands where he developed a classifi cation of wetlands for the glaciated prairie. Bob retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1976, after 40 years of federal service. He received the Meritorious Service Award in 1976 from the Secretary of the Interior, an honor award given to recognize his signifi cant scientifi c accomplishments within the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1977, Bob received the North Dakota Award from the North Dakota Chapter of The Wildlife Society for his outstanding contributions to wildlife management. Bob married Marjorie Bemis from Des Moines in 1936. They had a daughter, Margo Yerby, of Century, Florida, and three sons, Dr. Robert Stewart, Jr., of Lafayette, Louisiana, Dr. William Stewart, of Jamestown, North Dakota, and Craig Stewart of Shellrock, Iowa. They had 12 grandchildren and six great grandchildren. An avid naturalist and waterfowl hunter, Bob was a member of numerous professional societies. He was a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union, a member of the Wilson Ornithological Society, Cooper Ornithological Society, The Wildlife Society, the North Dakota Natural History Society, and the Ecological Society of America. Bob was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1945. Bob died on July 15, 1993, in Florida while visiting his daughter. He was 80 years old.
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WILLIAM H. STICKEL Bill, a pioneer environmental contaminants research scientist, was born November 8, 1912, in Terre Haute, Indiana. Bill attended Indiana State University for two years before entering the University of Michigan, from which he graduated with bachelor of science (1934) and master of science (1935) degrees in zoology/botany. He continued research at Michigan for several years, while serving as a teaching assistant and fellow in zoology. In 1940, Bill was employed by the U.S. Civil Service Commission, where he developed selective criteria and classifi cation standards for wildlife biologists. From 1941 until 1981, he was a wildlife research biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center near Laurel, Maryland. Bill served in the U.S. Army’s malaria survey unit in the Pacifi c Theater during World War II from June 1943 to December 1945. While in New Guinea and the Philippines, he found time to pursue his biological interests. He collected a variety of specimens, several of which were later found to be new to science. A species of lizard (Sphenomorphus stickeli) from New Guinea and a frog (Kaloula stickeli) from the Philippines were named in his honor. From 1951 to 1959, Bill was editor of Wildlife Review, a periodic compilation of current literature on wildlife biology, ecology, and management, published and disseminated widely by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Under his editorship, the range of topics and scope of coverage increased as this publication became an invaluable reference for wildlife professionals throughout the world. He also established and maintained an extensive reprint library of publications on the effects of pollution on wildlife and their habitats. These fi les represented a key reference collection for scientists working on contaminant problems. Throughout a productive career as a Federal government scientist, Bill’s research encompassed broad ecological studies. He became an authority on the natural history and cultural resources of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. He served as the Patuxent’s ecological research coordinator and developed conservation and management plans that were used to maintain a diversity of wildlife habitats to support a variety of research programs. In this role, Bill also fostered and facilitated the work of outside investigators thereby enhancing the value of the Center as a site for all kinds of ecological research. Bill enjoyed conducting tours of the Center’s facilities and habitats for visiting scientists and dignitaries, which afforded him an opportunity to interpret the signifi cance of Patuxent’s scientifi c research programs and valuable natural resources. He was an effective advocate for wildlife and habitat management based on research conducted by government scientists. When he retired, the fi nal tour by this great guide was recorded and the transcript was later used by many others leading tours of Patuxent. From 1959 to 1981, his research focused on effects of pesticides on wildlife and resulted in numerous publications in scientifi c journals. He was widely respected for his innovative experimental studies, his objectivity in the interpretation of research results, and his development of practical management applications of research fi ndings. This work provided the basis for present approaches to evaluation of biological and ecological effects of environmental
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contaminants on wildlife species and habitats. He also served as a mentor to younger members of the scientifi c staff. Bill was an offi cial representative on a number of national and international panels addressing pollution issues. He received several awards for distinguished service, including a Superior Performance Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1959 for editorship of Wildlife Review, an Outstanding Publication Award from the Southeastern Section of The Wildlife Society in 1965 for his paper on the effects of heptachlor on the woodcock, and a Special Achievement Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1971 for excellence in scientifi c publications. In 1982, Bill and his wife, Lucille Farrier Stickel, whom he married in 1941, retired to Macon County, North Carolina. There he renewed a life-long interest in botany and provided specimens and information on large numbers of plant species not previously recorded in Macon County, as well as participated in local botanical studies. He was a member of The Nature Conservancy, The Wildlife Society, the American Society of Mammalogists, and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. On the 50th Anniversary of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in 1989, a major research building was renamed Stickel Laboratory in recognition of outstanding scientifi c achievements that Bill and Lucille obtained. Bill was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1946 and terminated membership in 1977. Following a long series of illnesses, Bill died of congestive heart failure on February 11, 1996, at the age of 83 in Franklin, North Carolina.
ROBERT GLEN STREETER Bob was born on February 1, 1941, in the prairie town of Madison, South Dakota, near where his parents, Glen and Mayme Streeter, operated a diversifi ed farming operation. He developed an early interest in wildlife, observing the seasons, and the prairie wildlife while working with his father. He spent much of his childhood and free time on horseback, roaming around the wetlands and prairie remnants of Lake County. Pheasant and duck hunting were obligatory activities in this community! His parents left no question as to whether he would attend college. When a recruitment notice came from South Dakota State University outlining options that included wildlife management, Bob knew his chosen career had appeared. After graduating with a BS degree in wildlife management and conservation in 1963, and upon the advice and encouragement of his professor, Dr. Don Progulske, Bob accepted a research assistantship at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, to study under Dr. Henry S. Mosby. A course in plant ecology drew Bob away from Virginia to study elk winter
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range interactions in Yellowstone National Park with Dr. Duncan T. Patten. He graduated with an MS degree in wildlife biology in 1965 and moved to Colorado to work on bighorn sheep population dynamics under Drs. Fred Glover, Jack Gross, and Dwight Smith. Four years later, armed with his PhD degree from Colorado State University, he entered into active duty as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine to complete an earlier military obligation. The state of Colorado used the results of his research to modify bighorn sheep management of two populations in the state and to initiate a multi-year nutrition and disease study and management program. While in the U.S. Air Force laboratories, Bob conducted experiments on the effects of low oxygen and high carbon dioxide environments in space during the period of 1969 to 1972, providing key information that benefi ted astronaut survival in subsequent manned space fl ights that might experience such conditions. After the U.S. Air Force duty, he moved back to Colorado to become the assistant unit leader of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Colorado Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit. One year later, Bob moved to Washington, D.C., to become head of the Cooperative Wildlife Units’ program, supervising and providing support to the then 34 Wildlife Units located around the United States. The Service established the Offi ce of Biological Services in 1974 to address the impacts of energy development, tapping Bob as manager of the coal research program. Through 1982 he led a west-wide research and development effort that identifi ed where coal could be mined with minimal impacts on fi sh and wildlife, procedures to protect fi sh and wildlife during mining, and reclamation procedures for fi sh and wildlife habitats post-mining. In 1983, Bob established the Offi ce of Information Transfer that served as a communications link between the research organizations and the operational fi eld staff. He became part of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in 1988 and was responsible for implementing the North American Wetlands Conservation Act in 1989. He became executive director in 1992, and was recognized for providing the vision and structure together with other private, state, and federal partners that has resulted in the most successful wetlands conservation effort. Bob was appointed assistant director for Refuges and Wildlife in 1995, leading the Service’s National Wildlife Refuge, Land Acquisition, Law Enforcement, Migratory Bird Management, and North American programs. Bob joined the Ducks Unlimited team in 1998 and established a new offi ce in Fort Collins, Colorado, to develop a wetland conservation plan to guide future investments of Ducks Unlimited in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Bob left Ducks Unlimited in 2000 and now enjoys life in retirement. Bob married Karen Johnson in 1964. They have two sons and four grandchildren. Bob attended Washington Biologists’ Field Club as a guest of Dr. Harvey K. Nelson in 1993 and was elected to membership in 1995.
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BRADSHAW HALL SWALES Bradshaw was born on June 30, 1875, in Detroit. He attended the University of Michigan, earning an LLB degree in 1896 and an LLM degree in 1897. He passed the Michigan bar exam later that year and began to practice law in Detroit. In 1902, he married Mary Rhoda Medbury of Flint, Michigan. Outside of law, he was very interested in ornithology and anthropology, the latter particularly relating to American Indians and the settlement of the West. Swales moved to Washington, D.C., in 1918 and was appointed honorary custodian of the section of birds’ eggs in the National Museum. Then in 1921, he was appointed to be honorary assistant curator of birds. His specialty was foreign birds and he created a fund to contribute specimens of rare birds to the National Museum. Bradshaw was on of the founders of the Baird Ornithological Club and was its president when he died. He was elected to the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1902, and was made a member in 1909. He died on January 23, 1928, at his home in Washington, D.C. Brandshaw was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1919.
JASON RICHARD SWALLEN Jason was born May 1, 1903, in Alliance, Ohio. He earned an AB degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1924 and an MS degree from Kansas State Agricultural College in 1925, doing a thesis on the Ranales of Kansas. He spent two summers at the Michigan University Biological Station. In 1954, he was awarded an honorary DSc degree by his Ohio Alma Mater. In 1925, he started as a junior botanist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, serving until 1931 under the great agrostologists, A. S. Hitchcock and Agnes Chase. He collected in California in 1927, and from the Southwest United States to Yucatan, Mexico, in 1928, 1931, and 1932. After the sudden death of A. S. Hitchcock in 1935, he began actively publishing with Agnes Chase. In 1936, he published on the grasses of Honduras and Peten (Guatemala) and was promoted to assistant botanist and then associate botanist. From 1943 to 1945, he was agricultural production offi cer in the State Department (Offi ce of Inter-American Affairs), serving in Brazil. In 1947, he became the curator of the Division of Grasses at the Smithsonian and became chairman of the Botany Department (head curator) in 1950, responsibilities he served until his retirement in 1965. After retirement he lived in Florida, Maryland, and Ohio. Two grass genera, Swallenia Soderstrom and Decker and Swallenochloa McClure, were named for him, as well as a number of species, the fi rst being Eragrostis swallenii A. S. Hitchcock and the last Festuca swallenii Alexeev. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Botanical Society of Washington, the Cosmos Club, and the Explorers Club. He married Leona Winifred Smith on June 10, 1929. They had one daughter, Ester. He was married a
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second time to Clara Brazel on August 28, 1955. On April 22, 1991, Jason died in Delaware, Ohio, about 6 months after his second wife passed away. Jason was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1932, served as treasurer, and was president from 1948 to 1951. He was awarded an honorary membership in 1974.
ERNEST FREMONT SWIFT Ernie was born in Tracy, Minnesota, on September 15, 1897. Ernie completed his high school education in Tracy where his father had been superintendent of schools for 25 years. Following graduation in 1917, he enlisted in the United States Army. Following his discharge in March 1919, he made his home in Hayward, Wisconsin, where he worked as a guide and dealt in real estate and wood products. He was appointed as a Wisconsin conservation warden in June 1926, serving for the next two years as both warden and forest ranger in Forest County. In January 1928, he was placed in charge of the state’s law enforcement program. In November 1935, he was promoted to deputy conservation director, with duties involving general administration of departmental programs in law enforcement, game management, and forest protection. He also was responsible for drafting all game management and forestry regulations passed by the Conservation Commission. In 1943, he was again promoted to the position of assistant director, and in November 1947, was named director. In this top administrative position, he was responsible for carrying out the policies established by the six-member Conservation Commission through the activity programs of ten major divisions. Under his leadership, Wisconsin was one of the fi rst states to bring biologists into the conservation department, and the department made outstanding progress in forestry protection, fur-farm development, and other wildlife management programs. Ernie was called to Washington, D.C., in 1954 to serve as assistant director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, with primary responsibilities over the wildlife activities of the Service. He resigned in 1955 to become executive director of the National Wildlife Federation. He resigned the position with the Federation in 1960, but continued to serve the Federation as conservation adviser and forestry liaison offi cer, as well as through his prolifi c pen. Ernie exerted widespread infl uence on behalf of conservation through his essays, articles, editorials, and reports. He wrote regularly for National Wildlife magazine and Conservation News, two of the Federation’s periodicals. He also was the author of A Conservation Saga, a hard-cover book published in 1968 by the Federation. The recipient of more than 20 awards and citations, he won the Haskell Noyes Conservation Warden
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Award in 1930, was honored with the Aldo Leopold Medal in 1959, and a Gold Medallion (the fi rst ever given in the conservation fi eld) from the Wisconsin Exposition Department in 1966. He was president of the Midwest Association of Fish and Game Commissioners (1938-40 and 1949-50); second vice-president (1953-54); and chairman of the executive committee of the International Association of Game, Fish Conservation Commissioners (1953-54); vice-chairman, Natural Resources Committee of Wisconsin State Agencies (1951-54); chairman of forestry wildlife management committee, Society of American Foresters; and served on the committee of national-state relations, American Fisheries Society (1951-52). In 1961, he was elected to honorary membership by The Wildlife Society. Ernie died of a heart attack at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, on July 24, 1968. In his memory, the National Wildlife Federation established, at the request of his widow, a special Ernest F. Swift Memorial, which is used in connection with the Federation’s long-established grants-in-aid program for graduate students studying wildlife conservation and natural resource management at accredited colleges and universities. Ernie had a son, two daughters, and six grandchildren. Ernie was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1955.
LLOYD W. SWIFT Lloyd was born September 4, 1904, on the Swift Ranch near Ione, California, the youngest of fi ve children. He was reared on the family cattle ranch in Gold Rush Country, which included summers in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Lloyd’s grandparents went to California during 1850-60s. Lloyd enrolled at the University California, Davis, in 1922 in its fi rst four-year class. After three years Lloyd transferred to the University of California at Berkeley in the Department of Forestry, where he received a BS degree in 1927, and an MS degree in 1930. His career was 35 years with Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. He retired in 1963 as director, Division of Wildlife Management in the chief’s offi ce, Washington, D.C. As director he had leadership role in the coordination of game, fi sh, non-game, and endangered species habitat needs within multiple-use management programs on the 200-million acres of National Forest lands. Lloyd cooperated closely with state fi sh and game, conservation, and other organizations. Lloyd was fi rst executive offi cer, U.S. Appeal, World Wildlife Fund from 1963 to 1966, and then served a term as secretary and board member. After 1966, he was a consulting biologist concerned with wild land and wildlife management in the United States, the Middle East, central and eastern Africa. Foreign assignments were mostly with United Nations agencies. Lloyd was a member of the Cosmos Club and served as president in 1978 during the Club’s Centennial Year. He was a member of the Natural Resources Council of America and the Boone and Crockett Club. Lloyd served as leader of the Palaver Club from 1985 to 1996. Lloyd belonged to numerous scientifi c and professional organizations including Sigma XI, The Wildlife Society (trustee), and the Society of American Foresters. He was proud to have been a member of the Society of American Foresters for 71 years, and had
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personally known all the chiefs of the Forest Service from Gifford Pinchot through Michael Dombeck. Lloyd’s writings include technical and popular articles on wildlife management in U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, journals, and magazines. He was co-author of Range Plant Handbook, published by the U.S. Forest Service, 1937. Lloyd was married on December 9, 1929, to Clara J. Bishop, also a graduate student at U.C. Berkeley, in San Francisco. They had two children: Dr. Lloyd W. Swift, Jr., research forester, Franklin, North Carolina, and daughter Clara Ailes, Springfi eld, Virginia, wife of Admiral Robert H. Ailes. They had six grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Clara Bishop died in 1964. Lloyd married Rose Ward Dieter in December 1969. Lloyd was a very active member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club since 1947, serving as president, 1956-59, and then as an honorary member. Lloyd died on February 17, 2001, and a celebration of his life was held on March 4, 2001, for his many friends and relatives. A memorial plaque for Lloyd was installed on Plummers Island.
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LINDSEY KAY THOMAS, JR. Kay was born on April 16, 1931, in Salt Lake City, Utah. His interest in natural history was fostered by forest environments adjacent to his homes in several states. After graduation in 1953 from Utah State Agricultural College with a BS degree in botany, he became a ranger naturalist in the National Capital Parks of the National Park Service. He graduated in 1958 from Brigham Young University with an MS degree with major subject matter in both genetics and ecology. The ecological genetics research with additional data was published by Kay and Dr. Howard Stutz in Evolution and subsequently selected as a landmark paper on reticulate evolution in the book, Papers on Evolution. On December 31, 1957, he began his professional career as a park naturalist in Washington, D.C. In 1962, National Capital Parks was reorganized into a National Park Service region and Kay was selected to do research. His research on the effect of road salt came to the attention of the National Academy of Science and Kay was invited to present his paper at their conference and have it published in the Highway Research Record. When the National Park Service began initiating a national natural resource research program, Kay was one of a handful brought under the Washington Offi ce as a research biologist. He was given responsibility for Southeast Temperate Forest park areas in 1966, which he held until the National Park Service was reorganized. During this time the Service sent him for further graduate study at Duke University, and this began his doctoral program in ecology. The need to investigate exotic species problems in the National Parks brought about his research and doctoral dissertation, The Impact of Three Exotic Plant Species on the Native Vegetation of a Potomac Island (including animal and fungal species), which was published as a scientifi c monograph and distributed world-wide. Since 1982, his research has been directed toward developing a method of exotic plant management that will “exotic proof” the vegetation. Other important accomplishments include a method of recognizing signifi cant natural features and determining minimal sized viable natural ecosystems; this was the fi rst time anyone had shown that the wild land parks in the Washington metropolitan area had any great value. As an internationally known expert, he has conducted symposia on exotic species ecology and management. In recognition of his accomplishments, he was elected to membership in the Society of the Sigma Xi, the scientifi c research society, and he is included in a number of reference works including American Men of Science, Dictionary of International Biography, and Who’s Who in America. He married Nancy Van Dyke and they have four children. Nancy died in 2002. Kay was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1974 and served on the fauna and fl ora committee. As part of his exotic species research he collected vegetation and microclimate data on Plummers Island.
IVAR FREDERICK TIDESTROM
Ivar was born on September 13, 1856, on his father’s estate “Lanna” in Hidinge parish, Närke (or Nerike) province, Sweden, near Örebo where he went to school. In 1880, he ran away and came to New York, where all his luggage unfortunately was stolen. He served in the U.S. Army 4th Cavalry from 1880 to 1884 until
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he injured his hip in a fall from a horse, but served again from 1887 to 1891. In 1891, he began studying engineering at the University of California, but became an assistant to Edward Lee Greene and switched to a botany major. When Greene accepted a professorship at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., Ivar came along and got a PhD degree in 1897. In 1903, he became assistant botanist ($40 per month) in the Bureau of Plant Industry under botanist Frederick V. Coville. His fi rst major publication, Elysium Marianum (1906-10), a beginning of a fl ora of Maryland, was illustrated with photos, typeset, and published by him. In 1910, Professor Greene, then an associate in botany at the Smithsonian, had a salary ($1,200 per year) paid by the Forest Service to identify all range plants then being collected, with the exception of grasses and sedges. Shortly before Greene’s death in 1915, Ivar took over the identifi cation chores and began working on keys for western state fl oras. In connection with this he collected widely in the western United States. He published his best known work in 1925, Flora of Utah and Nevada. He retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1924, at that time probably with the greatest fi rst-hand knowledge of the fl ora of the United States of anyone. He served fi ve more years in the Botany Department at Catholic University and retired to Florida in 1931 at the age of 75. His later, larger work, Flora of Arizona and New Mexico (1941), was written jointly with Sister [Mary] Teresita Kittell. His last trip to a family reunion in Sweden, made in 1954 when he was 90 years old, resulted in 300 new collections that were added to some 14,000 already deposited at the Smithsonian. He died on August 2, 1956, in St. Petersburg, Florida. A generic name, Tidestromia Standley (Amaranthaceae) and a number of species names, such as Penstemon tidestromii Pennell and Viola tidestromii Greene, commemorate him. Ivar was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1910 and terminated his membership in 1946 for personal reasons.
DAVID LEE TRAUGER Dave was born on June 16, 1942. Dave received a bachelor of science degree in fi sh and wildlife management in 1964, a master of science degree in wildlife biology in 1967, and a PhD degree in animal ecology (minors: plant ecology and animal physiology) in 1971 from Iowa State University. He began federal employment with seasonal appointments at Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa, Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri, and Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in North Dakota. He joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permanently in 1972 as a wildlife research biologist at the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center. In July 1975, he was promoted to assistant director at Northern Prairie, and in June 1979, he was appointed as the chief, Division of Wildlife Research, in Washington, D.C. In June 1983, Dave transferred to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, where he served as Center Director until 1987, when he was
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assigned to the position of deputy center director until 1996. Dave led development of the fi rst strategic research plan for the Center. He also participated in the team that planned, designed, and constructed the National Wildlife Visitor Center, a state-of-the-art facility demonstrating the role of research in the conservation and management of wildlife resources. He was instrumental in assisting with the Center’s transition from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the National Biological Service. During 1996 and 1997, Dave joined the headquarters staff and participated in the integration of the National Biological Service into the U.S. Geological Survey. From 1992 to 2001, Dave chaired Research Grade Evaluation Panels for Research and Development in the Fish and Wildlife Service, for the National Biological Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division. Prior to federal employment, Dave held faculty appointments at Iowa State University, where he taught wildlife conservation and environmental biology for fi ve years from 1967 to 1972. He was adjunct professor at George Mason University, where he has taught an advanced seminar in environmental biology and advised graduate students. In addition, Dave chaired the wildlife sciences advisory committee for the College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In 2001, when he left federal employment he accepted the position of head of the Natural Resources Program of the Northern Virginia campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. As a wildlife research biologist, Dave led extensive fi eld research on the breeding biology and migrational ecology of diving ducks in Canada and the North Central States. Investigations of the breeding biology of the lesser scaup were conducted between 1966 and 1970 in the Subarctic Taiga near Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. From 1972 to 1978, research on canvasbacks was conducted in the Canadian Prairie Parklands and the Upper Mississippi River Valley. He has written more than 60 scientifi c papers and popular articles based on his research. Dave was elected into membership of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1981. He was elected to a three-year term from 1984 to 1986 as a member-at-large on the board of managers. From 1985 to 1987, he chaired the research committee. Dave was president of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club from 1987 to 1990. During his tenure, the Club began to discuss the need to diversify membership especially in regard to female members. In addition to serving as a past president on the board of managers since 1990, Dave helped for years on the food committee and regularly brought the fi sh for the spring shad bake. His hobbies include fi shing, hunting, genealogy, cooking, gardening (especially culinary herbs), reading, and photography. He and his wife, Alice, live in Frostburg, Maryland.
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ABRAM VORHIS TUNISON Abe was born in Geneva, New York, on April 16, 1909, to John Smalley and Kate Tunison. He married Frances Clementine Bishop on August 9, 1930. They had three children; June, John, and Kay. He attained his degrees from Cornell University, earning a BS degree in general agriculture in 1930, an MS degree in animal nutrition in 1932, and was a student in the graduate school from 1938 to 1940. Abe worked in a variety of positions, beginning as a technician for General Seafoods Corporation from 1930 to 1931. He then moved on to aquatic biology, working for the New York State Conservation Department from 1932 to 1944 and with the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior from 1944 to 1971. During his later years with the Fish and Wildlife Service he held administrative positions. From 1964 to 1970, he was deputy director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, and from 1970 to 1971, was the staff assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior. He was honored for his work in the government as a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of the Interior in 1967. The American Fisheries Society made him an honorary life member. Abe also belonged to The Wildlife Society, the International Association of Game and Fish Commissioners, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, the New York Academy of the Sciences, the American Chemistry Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Abe died on January 3, 1971, and was buried in Grove Cemetery in Trumansburg, New York. Abe was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1967.
JAMES CHASE TYLER, II Jim was born on March 31, 1935, in Shanghai, China, where his father was a Marine Corps offi cer on the Yangtze River Patrol. Upon the early death of his father, he returned to his mother’s family in Ottawa, Kansas, where he became fascinated with fossils, minnows, snakes, and Indian artifacts. Jim moved to Washington, D.C., during World War II, where he completed high school. He then entered George Washington University in 1953, and was graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a major in biology in 1957. While an undergraduate he obtained a part-time job in the Fish Division of the National Museum of Natural History, fi rst as a collection assistant (bottle washer) and then as a research assistant, fi eld collector in the Gulf of Mexico, and radiographic technician. His identifi cations of the then rare fi sh specimens that were coming into the Smithsonian from exploratory research vessels working in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean led to the publication of his fi rst scientifi c paper and a decision to enter graduate school for ichthyology at Stanford University. He received his PhD degree from Stanford in 1962 with a dissertation on the osteologically-based relationships of tetraodontiform fi shes (trigger fi shes, boxfi shes, puffer
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fi shes), and he has continued to study the systematics, behavior, and ecology of these mainly coral reef fi shes and their fossil antecedents throughout his career. From 1962 to 1972, he was an assistant and associate curator of ichthyology and herpetology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He accepted the position of assistant director in 1972 and then director from 1973 to 1975 of the Lerner Marine Laboratory on the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, a broad-based marine research and teaching laboratory of the American Museum of Natural History. From 1975 to 1980, he held a variety of administrative positions in the National Marine Fisheries Service in Washington, D.C., and Miami, Florida, involving endangered and threatened species (mostly sea turtles, bluefi n tunas, sturgeons, and corals), eventually becoming manager of the entire Endangered Species Program of the Service. From 1980 to 1985, he was the director of the Biological Research Resources Program of the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., allocating funding to research facilities, especially to systematic collections in museums and to terrestrial and marine fi eld stations. In 1985, he joined the Smithsonian Institution as the deputy director of the National Museum of Natural History, and from 1986 to 1990, served two one-year-long terms as the acting director there and another year as the acting director of the National Air and Space Museum. In 1990, he returned to a full-time research position in the Natural History Museum, spending about half of his time on fossil fi sh systematics and phylogeny and half on the behavioral ecology of living coral reef fi shes. He is pleased that his life has included marriage and two children; more than 100 publications (including two books and several large monographs); research-related visits to more than 100 countries around the world; being on an ice-breaker (1958-59) in the Antarctic, with four voyages around the Horn; organizing the expedition to Australia in 1970 that discovered the long-lost cannons that Captain James Cook jettisoned from the Endeavour when it went aground on the Great Barrier Reef in 1770; fi ve aquanaut sojourns, living underwater in Caribbean habitats for up to 18 days at a time, and sometimes using silent and bubbleless oxygen re-breathers; scuba diving to observe and collect fi shes in all of the main coral reef seas of the world; trips in deep submersibles to the ocean fl oor; meeting many luminaries of aviation history and space exploration; landing in a jet on an aircraft carrier; and numerous awards for exceptional service. Jim was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1986 and served on the board of managers numerous times.
FRANCIS MOREY UHLER Fran was born on January 26, 1902, on the campus of Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota, where his father was a science professor. He developed an early interest in wildlife while exploring the natural areas around his campus home and often went hunting or trapping before attending high school classes. Fran began his professional career on July 1, 1924, as a wildlife research biologist with the Bureau of Biological Survey. He came armed with a degree in biology from Gustavus Adolphus College and a tremendous willingness to learn more about wildlife and their habitats. Shortly after reporting to Washington, D.C., he was called upon to become a member of a select team of three biologists who were responsible for identifying areas suitable for federal acquisition as waterfowl refuges. This mission proved invaluable in the development of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
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During the fall of 1933, Fran conducted a very important investigation in the Illinois River area involving the shooting of ducks over live decoys and bait. He found that there was a surprisingly large amount of fi eld-pen shooting with live decoys and bait. As a direct result of his report, live decoys and baiting were prohibited after 1934. Fran was an internationally-known expert on the foods and feeding habits of wildlife. He conducted intensive studies of fi sh-eating birds and determined that they were having no detrimental effect on game fi sh populations. With his coworker, Dr. A. C. Martin, he wrote a signifi cant report on the Food of Game Ducks in the United States and Canada. During the 1970s and 1980s he was involved with an intensive study of Chesapeake Bay and documented the dramatic decline of submerged aquatic vegetation as a food for waterfowl wintering in the Bay. Fran is credited with analyzing more wildlife food samples than any other person in the U.S. and possibly the world. Fran worked and lived at Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland, from 1940 to 1985. All the major impoundments at Patuxent were constructed under Fran’s supervision. He experimented with numerous designs of nesting structures for ducks and developed two designs that were successfully used by ducks, but would deter the use by starlings. The wetlands of Patuxent are still productive wildlife areas, and a continuing testimony to his expertise in wetland management. Two Patuxent impoundments (Uhler 1 and 2) were renamed as a tribute to him at Patuxent’s fi ftieth anniversary in 1989. In recognition of his achievements in the fi eld of wildlife research, with particular reference to studies of food habits of North American wildlife, he was the worthy recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of the Interior in 1958. An honorary Doctor of Science degree was awarded to Fran at Patuxent in 1987 by Gustavus Adolphus College. Fran was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1929 and served as president of the Club from 1940 to 1942. He was awarded honorary member status in 1972. Fran loved the outings at the Island and is most remembered for his enthusiastic attention to cooking shad and oysters over the grill. Fran died in his home on September 30, 1990, after spending part of the day watching birds at his bird feeder. He was a Washington Biologists’ Field Club member in good standing for 61 years.
HENRY ULKE Henry was born in Frankenstein, Germany, in 1821. His father was a prominent naturalist and in 1849, he came to this country with Henry. His father soon returned to Germany, and young Henry came to Washington, where his talent as an artist soon gained recognition. He was also known as a music critic. Henry belonged to the fi rst generation of American Coleopterists, having been a charter member of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia and was closely associated with the men of that day, such as Leconte, Horn, Ridings, Bland, Cresson, Wenzel, Wilt, and Feldman. He was a noted collector, particularly of the smaller Coleoptera, such as the Pselaphidae, Scydmaenidae and Sllphidae, and also a master in technic. His collection and material were frequently used by the systematists of the time. Many references to it will be found in the writings of Cresson, Leconte, and Horn, as well as in those of Dicta and others. Many rare and interesting specimens were presented by him to the collection of the American Entomological Society, the fi rst lot being donated in 1861. He was the owner of a famous collection of Coleoptera, the work of a lifetime. It is now in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had a large circle of scientifi c friends and was admired and
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respected by all. Perhaps no portrait painter in this country was better known in the late 1800s than Henry Ulke. He was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, portraits of many of whose cabinet members he painted. Until the building of the new executive offi ces, one of Henry’s most famous portraits, that of President Grant, hung in the private offi ce of the President. It now hangs with the White House collection, in the long gallery. Henry painted numerous zoo portraits, but was best known for human portraits notable among them being those of Secretaries Sumner, Chase, and Stanton, of Lincoln’s cabinet; James G. Blaine, John G. Carlisle, Carl Schurz, John Sherman, and Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court; Robert Ingersoll; and W. W. Corcoran, founder of the art gallery that bears his name. Henry died at 8 o’clock on February 18, 1910, in Emergency Hospital, at Washington, D.C., of a concussion of the brain, due to a fall at his home, 411 Fifteenth Street Northwest. At the time of the accident that caused his death Henry was, considering his advanced age, in excellent health. He had fallen and struck the side of his head against a door. He was found by his son in an unconscious condition and was taken to the hospital, where he died without regaining consciousness. He had three sons. Henry was awarded an honorary membership in the Club in 1904.
GLEN PARKER VAN ESELTINE Glen was born on October 21, 1888, in Syracuse, New York. He graduated with an AB degree from Syracuse in 1913. He served as aid in the U.S. National Herbarium in Washington from 1913 to 1915, became assistant in the Offi ce of Foreign Seed and Plant Introductions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1915 and served in that capacity until 1919 when he became assistant botanist. During World War I, he was active in food work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1922, he returned to Syracuse, following a period of ill health, and taught in North High School in that city until 1927, when he joined the staff of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, as associate in research and botanist. He was on the faculty of the Syracuse University Summer School in 1926, 1928, and 1929. His professional work was in the fi eld of taxonomic botany, especially that dealing with economic and horticultural plants. He was the author of numerous government publications on botanical subjects, contributor to scientifi c journals, and the co-author of the Beans of New York, the Sweet Corn of New York, and the Cucurbits of New York in the series of vegetable books published by the Experiment Station. He held membership in many professional and scientifi c societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he was a fellow, the Botanical Society of America, the Ecological Society of America, the American Society for Horticultural Science, the Society of Sigma Xi, and Sigma Phi Epsilon. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1915.
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Glen always took an active part in the local communities in which he lived. In Geneva, he was president of the Eaton Bird Club and the Geneva Chapter of the Izaak Walton League. It was through his efforts that the Geneva Garden Club, which he also served as president, was organized and the fl ower shows established. He was a member of the North Presbyterian Church of Geneva, an honorary member of the Canandaigua Botanical Society, chairman of the scout advancement committee of Geneva, and secretary of the University Club. He was married to Florence M. Lamb of Meridian, New York, on September 9, 1915, and they had three children: Robert L., William P., and Dorothy. Glen passed away suddenly at his home on November 14, 1938, from a heart attack. To do nothing more than to place on record the achievements and activities of Glen would be to miss so very much. It was his quiet, kindly, helpful, uplifting spirit that brought him so many friends, and the high standards of daily living and the search and appreciation for better and fi ner things coupled with it that gained him the respect of his colleagues and drew youth to him. No request for help or advice in professional work or in the handling of problems involving human relations was ever denied.
THOMAS WAYLAND VAUGHANThomas was born in Jonesville, Texas, on September 20,
1870. He endured extensive schooling including a BS degree in 1889 from Tulane University. He then entered Harvard and received an AB degree in 1893, an AM degree in 1894, and a PhD degree in 1903. He also received LLD degrees from the University of British Columbia in 1933 and the University of California in 1936. Tulane University awarded him a doctor of science degree in 1944. He also studied music in Europe. Thomas married Dorothy Q. Upham on March 22, 1909, and they had one daughter, Caroline Ely. He did geologic and paleontologic research with the U.S. Geological Survey from 1894 to 1923. He was the geologist in charge of Coastal Plain investigations, was the senior geologist from 1924 to 1928, and became the principal scientist from 1928 to 1939. He was the custodian of Madreporarian corals at the U.S. National Museum from 1903 to 1923. Thomas was an associate in marine sediments from 1924 to 1942, in paleontology since 1942, and was the director of Scripps Institute of University of California, La Jolla. He also was director emeritus from 1936 until his death. Thomas became a specialist on tertiary geology, fossil and recent corals, larger Foraminifera, and marine sediments. He received numerous awards including the Decorated Order of Rising Sun Third Class, Japan, in 1940. Thomas was awarded the Agassiz Medal for research in oceanography for the National Academy of Science in 1935. He received the Mary Clark Thompson Medal for geology and paleontology in 1945, and the Penrose Medal from the Geological Society of America in 1946. Thomas was a member of various clubs and groups. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the California Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society of America, the Association of American Geographers, the Paleontological Society, the Washington Academy of Science, and the San Diego Society of Natural History. Thomas was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Geophysicist Union, the Geological Society of Washington, the Oceanographic Society of the Pacifi c, and the Philosophical Society of Texas. He was a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the Society of Geographers of Cuba. Thomas was a foreign member
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of the Linnaean Society, a foreign fellow of the Geological Society of London, and an honorable member of the Geological Society of Peru. He was a U.S. delegate from 1920 until 1933 for numerous congresses held all over the world. He was a distinguished author, publishing more than 300 papers mostly on oceanography. He belonged to the Cosmos Club in Washington and was a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1932, he took a year long trip around the world to study provisions on oceanographic research for the National Academy of Science. He died on January 16, 1952. Thomas was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1901 and terminated his membership in 1924.
HENRY LORENZ VIERECK The youngest of fi ve children, Henry was born in Philadelphia, on March 28, 1881. His father, John A., immigrated to the United States in 1856 and was wounded at the second Battle of Bull Run. Both young Henry and J. A. G. Rehn were known as Charles W. Johnson’s “boys.” Johnson was museum curator of the Wagner Free Institute of Science in Philadelphia and an excellent teacher of natural history. The boys collected not only insects, but also birds, mollusks, and reptiles. One of their favorite collecting spots was on the slopes of the Blue Ridge on the farm of a Pennsylvania Dutch family at Lehigh Gap. Henry was educated in Philadelphia public schools and later in Brown’s Preparatory School, where he did not fi nish. He enlisted under age in the Spanish-American War, almost dying of typhoid in a Georgia army camp. His mother died while he was convalescing and a few years later “his kindly, white-bearded father, beloved by all the son’s boyhood friends, was killed by an express train at Lehigh Gap.” According to Rehn, “The crusader spirit was always strong in him, in his scientifi c studies and in his personal attitude toward social and political problems of the day. Compromise with wrong or injustice was unthinkable to him, and his strong convictions and demand for what he considered fair dealing more than once caused him to shift the scene of his activities. While a blithesomeness, which his old associates will never forget, was one of his chief possessions, tragedy stalked through his life, loved ones were taken from him with startling suddenness . . .” When in 1900 he became a Jessup student of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, he spent many hours studying the Cresson types of Hymenoptera. He accompanied Rehn on a several months’ visit to New Mexico and proved to be a capable and diligent collector. It was there that he began to make plans for a monograph of the bee genus Andrena, which remained through the rest of his life the one contribution he wished to complete, and toward which a number of his published papers were preliminary, but the fi nal study never appeared. From 1903 to 1905, he studied medicine at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, but never completed that course. In the summer of 1903, Henry was associated with John B. Smith in mosquito control. In 1904 and 1905, he was connected with the Connecticut Agricultural Station, where he worked with Dr. W. E. Britton and studied mutillid wasps and bees in cooperation with T. D. A. Cockerell and other hymenopterists. He specialized in the Hymenoptera, especially during his twenties, averaging six or fewer hours of sleep a night. His association with the Connecticut Agricultural Station eventually resulted in the manual, Hymenoptera of Connecticut, in whose preparation he assisted. Rehn remarks that Henry’s nervous temperament and idealism became restive “under offi cial requirements or regulations” and he frequently severed connections. From 1905 to 1907, he was an assistant in
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the pathology laboratory of a medical college that Rehn does not name. In 1907 and 1908, he worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Zoology; from 1909 through 1913, for the Bureau of Entomology in the National Museum, where he studied the ichneumonids; and in 1914, he was an entomological explorer for the California State Horticultural Commission. In the same year, Henry established himself in Sicily and discovered the Sicilian citrus mealy-bug parasite, Leptornastidea abnormis (Girault). From 1916 through 1923, he was on the staff of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Biological Survey, and sometime between 1923 and 1926, he was assistant entomologist with the Entomological Branch of the Canada Department of Agriculture. Henry married Ida Adele Davis, a widow, in 1918, and never fully recovered from her death of pneumonia the next year. He traveled with friends to Colombia in 1922 as their guest, and there he became acquainted with tropical insect life. In 1926, he resumed work at the Academy in Philadelphia, but lived with a sister in Irvington, New Jersey. By 1928, Henry had written 92 papers on the Hymenoptera. In addition, he was largely responsible for the section on the Hymenoptera in J. B. Smith’s 1910 edition of the Insects of New Jersey. Although his main specialty in bees was the Andrenidae, he also published papers on the ichneumon fl ies. He was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1911. Henry’s life, replete with tragedies, ended with one: on October 8, 1931, while collecting along a road near Loudenville, Ohio, for that state, he was killed by a hit-and-run motorist.
GEORGE BRITTON VOGT George was born on April 10, 1920, in Baltimore, Maryland, and he died on December 12, 1990, in Washington, D.C. Originally George was interested in many groups of insects. He earned his bachelor of science degree in 1941 and his master of science degree in 1949, both from the University of Maryland. While at the University of Maryland, George concentrated on Coleoptera and Hemiptera (especially Scutellericlae). His formal studies were interrupted when he was stationed in Brownsville, Texas, with the U.S. Public Health Service from 1946 to 1947. During those two years, George spent his weekends collecting at a number of sites in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and built an extensive collection of bug and beetle families. While earning his master’s degree at Maryland, and employed by the University as an assistant professor, George had an impressive knowledge of the systematics and biology of most of the Coleoptera occurring in eastern North America. George began his employment with the Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service, in 1949. During the years 1950 to 1952, George was assigned to Burma and worked on mosquito related problems. It was during this time that an impressive collection of Burmese insects was made. In 1956, George explored Spain and southwest Asia looking for potential biological control agents for the chenopod weed Halogeton. Later, he was a member of the Systematic Entomology Laboratory and was stationed at the U.S. National Museum for a number of years. In 1972, he was reassigned to the Southern Weed Science Lab in Stoneville, Mississippi, and led a team that studied the importations and sub sequent releases that successfully controlled alligatorweed. George retired from the Weed Lab in 1978 but remained very active in his prime research interests and divided his time between the Weed Lab and the Entomology Lab by maintaining residences in Leland, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. George was well known for his diverse entomological research. He conducted the exploration of much of South America from 1960 to 1962, which led to the importation of the natural enemies of alligatorweed. His
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fi ve trips during that time led to the discovery of three insects, which ultimately were released in the Southeast; two of these were new to science and the most voracious and thus effective control agent was a small moth subsequently named Vogtia. George’s studies of leaf-mining Buprestidae, leaf-rolling attelabids and their thief weevils (Pterocolinae), began during his youth and became the focus of much of his personally elected research throughout his various travels and diverse assignments. He initiated a comprehensive rearing program in 1953 and included a small study of leaf-mining Tachygoninae and Hispinae. To date, at least 300 species of neotropical buprestid leaf-miners have been reared and ecologically studied. These groups tie together from the standpoint of their ecologies and phylogenies. George’s publication list was diverse and truly refl ects the variety of his career assignments and his personally elected research. He belonged to a number of sci entifi c organizations including the Entomological Society of America, Ecological Society of America, Entomological Society of Washington, Society of Systematic Zoology, the Coleopterists Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he also was listed in American Men of Science. George was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1950.
WARREN LAMBERT WAGNER
Warren was born on February 8, 1950, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he grew up, except for attendance of a private school in Evergreen, Colorado, from 1959 through 1962. His father, Anthony, was an accountant, who worked for Porter & Sons and then the First National Bank, while his mother raised four children and worked at Woolworth. Warren attended New Mexico State University from 1968 to 1972, changing his major several times, including math, computer science, and food service management. He worked as a cook and a printer. In 1972 after his father died suddenly, he moved to Albuquerque to attend University of New Mexico as a premedical student with a major in biology. He took a fl ora of New Mexico class, and through serving as the teaching assistant for the class in the following year, developed a strong interest in botany. He received his BS degree in biology in 1973 and following advice from William Martin began a master’s program in 1974. He was herbarium curatorial assistant and a research assistant on a series of grants. He also ran an independent contracting service for environmental impact and endangered species assessments. His fi rst research projects included: a biological survey of Kirtland Air Force Base; Manual of the Saltbushes (Atriplex) in New Mexico; natural succession on strip-mined lands in northwestern New Mexico; and his thesis on the fl ora of the Animas Mountains, New Mexico. In 1977, Warren went to St. Louis to work on a PhD degree with Peter Raven at Washington University and the Missouri Botanical Garden. He worked on systematics of the evening primrose genus, Oenothera, and completed the degree in 1981. Without ever having visited the Hawaiian Islands or studied island plants, he took a position at the Bishop Museum to work on a new fl ora of the Hawaiian Islands. He assumed leadership in the project in 1983, and the fi rst fl ora for over a century was completed in slightly over fi ve years and published in 1990 involving two co-authors and fi fty contributors. He subsequently was awarded the Robert Allerton Award in 1995 from the National Tropical Botanical Garden, an award for excellence in the fi elds of tropical botany or horticulture. He also was awarded the Engler Medal in Silver in 1990 from the International Association for Plant Taxonomy
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and the Henry Allan Gleason Award from the New York Botanical Garden for his work on the Manual of the fl owering plants of Hawaii. He was hired as curator of Pacifi c botany, Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution in 1988 to replace Marie Hélène Sachet and F. Raymond Fosberg. In 1992, he was selected to be department chair and served in this position through 1997. His research primarily focuses on biosystematic, taxonomic and phylogenetic studies, monographs and fl oras, classifi cation, phylogeny, and biogeography of Pacifi c island fl oras contributing to understanding island biodiversity, evolution, and, therefore, conservation. He is the writer or co-writer of 116 publications including four books. His studies continue, including 20 of his
publications, in the Onagraceae tribe Onagreae, primarily Oenothera. He has served on the USA board of directors for the International Association of Plant Taxonomists, 1996-99; Systematic Botany Monographs, editorial committee, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, 1995-99; and editor, American Society of Plant Taxonomists newsletter, 1990-92. In June 1993, he married Lucy Carol Julian in Boulder, Colorado, and they had two children born in Falls Church: Anthony Julian Wagner in 1995 and Eleanor Rose Wagner in 1997. Warren was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1991 and has served as treasurer from 1997 to 2007. In 1996, he began assisting Tom Fritts on cook duties, and assumed them at the oyster roast in 1998 amidst clouds of smoke (from a squirrel nest in the chimney).
ERNEST PILLSBURY WALKER Ernest was born in 1891 in Blue Springs, Missouri, and grew up on farms in Indiana, Colorado, and Utah. It was in this rural setting that his innate love for furred and feathered wild things was nurtured throughout his childhood. His formal education as a biologist was completed at the University of Wyoming. After college Ernest went to Alaska as a warden and inspector with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and while there from 1913 to 1919, he met and married the former Astrid Shafsted. On his return to the states he served for two years as a U.S. game warden in Arizona and California. In 1921, he went back to Alaska with the U.S. Biological Survey where he served as fur and game warden and as executive offi cer and fi scal agent for the Alaska Game Commission. He came to Washington, D.C., in 1927 and assumed a position at the National Zoo under the director, William Mann. He was assistant director of the National Zoological Park from 1930 to 1956. Although his articles on animal life appeared in such diverse publications as the National Geographic Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and the Illustrated London News, his life’s publishing work was his three volume Mammals of the World. Other popular works included First Aid and Care of Small Mammals and Studying Small Mammals. These two books were published by the Animal Welfare Institute in which Ernest served as an active member. Ernest was a charter member of the American Society of Mammalogists. He was a member of the Masons and while in Alaska active with the Mount Juneau Lodge and its Eastern Star Chapter.
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Earnest was considered a friend of the animals and worked diligently throughout his life for their protection. He dedicated one of his books “To the mammals, great and small, who contribute so much to the welfare and happiness of man, another mammal, but receive so little in return except blame, abuse and extermination.” Ernest died on January 31, 1969, in a Rockville, Maryland, motel where he was staying to be close to his doctor who was treating him for a chronic heart condition. His wife died in 1961 and he had lived for several years in Arlington, Virginia, with his sister who was his closest relative. Earnest was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1927 and received an honorary membership in 1961.
WILLIAM W. WALLIS Listed as “botanist, ichthyologist, and member of the Biological Survey” he is not to be found in botanical literature. Bill was nominated by Waldo McAtee and seconded by Herbert Barber in the August 1, 1912, meeting of the board of managers and approved to be passed to the Club for balloting. He moved to Florida around 1925. From that point on he’s listed as a non-resident member in Florida, moving at least once. He was listed as a non-resident member on the August 1, 1958 list of members eligible for a plaque on Plummers Island. Bill died on November 8, 1964.
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GEORGE ELDER WATSON 3RD
George was born on August 13, 1931, in New York City. He was raised and schooled until 13 years old in Greenwich and New Canaan, Connecticut, in neighborhoods with streams, ponds, open fi elds, and woods that led to an interest in natural history. His parents encouraged such activities, gave him a room off the kitchen for his “cabinet of curiosities,” and he took a correspondence course from the Northwestern School of Taxidermy. At St. Mark’s School in Massachusetts, he had fi ve years of Latin and three years of ancient Greek and participated in Sunday morning bird walks. During summers in Stonington, Connecticut, and Fishers Island, New York, he was further exposed to outdoor life, seabird breeding colonies and sailing. He also met William Beebe at the Bronx Zoo through a family friend. Although he majored in ancient Greek as an undergraduate at Yale, he took many natural history courses and with the encouragement of Dillon Ripley, curator of birds in the Peabody Museum, further refi ned his animal skinning abilities under museum preparators. Ripley, aware of his interests in natural history and Greece, helped secure a Yale traveling fellowship and additional funding for George to collect bird and other natural history specimens for the Peabody during 16 months while affi liated with the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. He acquired a World War II jeep and visited all parts of the country, including the Aegean islands, bringing back a comprehensive general collection. He contracted a mild case of hepatitis in Greece, resulting in his military draft deferral and eventual 4F status. In August 1955, he went to Cuba for four and a half months of collecting for the Peabody Museum, and with Ripley published a paper of “Cuban bird notes” in YPM Postilla on the collection and his observations. The experience of the two trips and his interest in natural history convinced him to apply to the Department of Zoology in the Yale Graduate School. Returning to the American School of Classical Studies in 1958, with support of a National Science Foundation predoctoral fellowship, he spent another 18 months in Greece and a two-month whirlwind tour in southern and western Turkey for fi eld work for his thesis on Evolution and Ecology of Passerine Birds in the Islands of the Aegean Sea. He also reared Alectoris partridge, Coturnix quail, and chickens on the roof of the Peabody Museum on which he made observations on feathers and molt. The Cuban, Greek, and Turkish collections and observations on feather growth led to a number of papers published or in press before he completed his graduate work and they, along with a set of Teach-me About Birds fl ash cards and Encyclopedia Americana entries and his museum and fi eld experience, led to an offer as assistant curator of birds in the Museum of Natural History in August 1962. Subsequently he was promoted to associate curator and curator and served fi ve years as chairman of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology. Joining Washington Biologists’ Field Club member Phil Humphrey in the Museum, George took responsibility for Old World birds and planning the move of the bird collections into new
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quarters in the Museum. The International Indian Ocean Expedition was just beginning and George, with Richard Zusi and Bob Storer, put out a Preliminary Field Guide to the Birds of the Indian Ocean in 1963 to assist ornithologists to collect observations and specimens in an area that had been little studied. That rapidly-produced work based only on “bench study,” led to signifi cant original fi eldwork for two other guides, Seabirds of the Tropical Atlantic Ocean in 1966 and Handbook to the Birds of the Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic in 1975. His research and incidental travels have taken him to all seven continents and the “seven seas.” He is author of over a hundred scientifi c research papers, reports and book chapters and was one of three co-authors of Volume XI of the Check-list of the Birds of the World covering Old World warblers and fl ycatchers. He contributed a major chapter on birds to Wilhemina Jashemski and Fred Meyers’ The Natural History of Pompeii, in 2002. George was an active, early participant in the efforts to computerize the National Museum of Natural History collections. He served as U.S. observer on the 18th Chilean Antarctic Commission. Along with John Aldrich, he was a “scientifi c expert” who assisted the U.S. Department of State in formulating and negotiating the U.S.-Japan Migratory Bird Treaty in Tokyo and Washington in 1968 and 1969 and also served on the U.S. working group for drafting the Treaty that was signed in 1972 and later ratifi ed by the Senate. In 1975, George began a long association with the National Geographic Society as a member of its committee for research and exploration, replacing Alexander Wetmore. He also acted as ornithological advisor to the Society’s Magazine, Television and Book Service Divisions. In addition, he advised Time-Life Books on several natural history publications. George retired from the Smithsonian in early 1985, and from 1986 to 1993 served as administrative assistant in the Offi ce of Development and associate editor of the St. Albans Bulletin. George has served as an offi cer in professional societies including the American Ornithologists’ Union, the International Ornithological Congress, the Audubon Naturalist Society, and the International Council for Bird Protection. He has been president of the Literary Society and the Wesley Heights Historical Society and a board member of the Cosmos Club. He has led or been guest lecturer on ecotours for the Smithsonian, Lindblad, Viking, and National Geographic in the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, South America, and Antarctica. George was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1966 and has served on the fi nance committee, house and grounds committee, as a board member, and as president from 1981 to 1984. Among his honors are undergraduate Greek prizes from Yale, Sigma XI, the Antarctic Service Medal, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science fellowship, and he was a semifi nalist for the Arthur S. Fleming Award in 1970. George has a bird louse and also a mountain ridge, nine-mile-long Watson Peaks, in the Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica, named for him. George married Louisa Carter “Terry” Johnson, a professional organizer, December 10, 1966, and they have two children, Elisabeth Carter, an employment lawyer in Los Angeles, and George IV, a vice-president specializing in health issues for a venture capital partnership in Baltimore, Maryland. George and his wife have fi ve grandchildren.
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RALPH EDWARD WEBB
Ralph was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 15, 1941, and was raised in a rural part of Maryland called Howard County. The family home was a converted log cabin with the chestnut logs still in the bottom story. Ralph was pre-Columbian. How green was his county. Many the summer day was spent in the woods, when not spent weeding the family strawberry patches or doing other chores. Nature was as close as the family well, in which dwelt a nest of copperheads. He didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother him. For better or worse, Howard County became covered by a new city, Columbia, well planned in a sterile sort of way. Ralph often wondered what became of his pet copperheads. After a quite decent education in a Howard County public school system renowned in those days for strict discipline, Ralph set off for the University of Maryland, where, after sampling a variety of majors, he received his BS degree in botany in 1964 mentored by the late Dr. Russell Brown. That year was notable for three other reasons; fi rst, his marriage to June McArthur; second, his acceptance into the plant pathology graduate program at Maryland; and third, his employment as a temporary summer student worker at Beltsville by the entomologist Dr. Floyd Smith. Ralph and Floyd really hit it off. Ralph was quickly made permanent, changed his major at Maryland to entomology, and quickly rose through the ranks as he obtained his MS degree in 1967 and his PhD degree in 1972. Ralph joined the Agricultural Research Service in 1964, and as of April, 2004, had written or co-written 181 publications (99 refereed) exclusive of abstracts. Early work was on host/insect interactions and pest management of aphids, leafminers, and whitefl ies on vegetable, fl orist, and nursery crops. In 1975, Ralph was designated coordinator for the Service gypsy moth research, while continuing research on pests of fl orist and nursery crops. He joined the Insect Chemical Ecology Laboratory in 1987 with a one hundred percent assignment to gypsy moth research. Ralph joined the Insect Biocontrol Laboratory in 1990 and developed strategies to mitigate losses due to gypsy moth in non-forest settings and assembled technology into control systems. This included work elucidating several key steps leading to the successful use of disparlure (the sex attractant of the gypsy moth) for male trapping and mating disruption. He focused on cooperating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service developing the nuclear polyhedrosis virus of the gypsy moth into a cost-effective, species-specifi c, environmentally-benign control agent. Ralph joined the Chemicals Affecting Insect Behavior Laboratory in 2001, with a fi fty percent assignment on gypsy moth and other shade tree insects and a fi fty percent assignment to mosquito research. The mosquito research was conducted in cooperation with fellow Washington Biologists’ Field Club member Beth Norden. Ralph is fortunate to have a career that was so much fun. Work involved fi eld research, usually in lovely locations in forests, mountains, and swamps in a number of states. His study sites have varied from individual trees to many thousands of hectares. One project involved the aerial application of gypsy moth pheromone to disrupt
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mating to a 30,000 hectare area in Cecil County, Maryland. Many studies have been conducted in lovely Garrett County, Maryland, and in the Shenandoah Valley and the surrounding mountains, including a three year study along Skyline Drive. And they pay him for this! Ralph’s marriage to June resulted in son Matthew and daughter Helen. Matt is a steamfi tter who also teaches computer science to apprentices at the Steamfi tter Union School. Matt is married with one beautiful daughter. Helen earned a BS degree in math from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a PhD degree in marine geophysics in a joint program with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She is married and currently is raising two beautiful preschool daughters while keeping her hand in science part-time as an engineer developing satellite data code. Ralph was elected into membership in 2004.
WALTER ALOIS WEBER Walter was born on May 23, 1906, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were poor immigrants, and he grew up in a family of eleven children. His artistic talent was recognized early on and at age nine he began taking classes on Saturdays at Chicago’s Art Institute. At ten he began visiting local bars where he would sketch birds and mammals for ten to fi fty cents. He used this money to buy more art supplies. Walter went to college at the University of Chicago and graduated with honors in 1927, earning a BS degree in zoology and botany. He also was a member of the honors fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa. He also continued his studies at the Art Institute. The Canadian animal artist, Allan Brooks, instructed him for four months, and he spent time working with Carl Rungius, a big game painter, as well. From 1928 to 1931 Walter worked for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago as a collector and artist. While in this position he was able to travel the world on research trips. After this he worked as a freelance artist, contributing to Birds of Minnesota, Traveling with the Birds, and Homes and Habits of Wild Animals. In 1935, he took a job as a wildlife technician with the National Park Service in Oklahoma and Texas. After a year there he became the National Park Service’s chief scientifi c illustrator in Washington, D.C. In 1941, he moved on and became an ornithologist at the U.S. National Museum. Walter returned to freelance work from 1944 to 1949. During this time he worked under contract for the National Geographic Society and for private collectors, did ink drawings for the book Meeting the Mammals, and painted covers between 1944 and 1957 for seven books sponsored by the Wildlife Management Institute. In 1949, Walter worked as staff artist and naturalist for the National Geographic Society, traveling to much of the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. He stayed in this position until he retired in 1971. Throughout his lifetime, Walter’s art appeared in a large number of varied publications. Walter designed a symbol for the cover of the then new Journal of Wildlife Management using Egyptian hieroglyphics. This symbol now appears on all publications and membership pins of The Wildlife Society. Over 250 of his paintings (some signed with his pseudonym “Al Kreml”) were featured on stamps issued by the National Wildlife Federation from 1940 to 1961. From 1941 to 1954, he created cover illustrations for the Pittman-Robertson Quarterly. He was the fi rst person to design two federal duck stamps, having been asked to do so in 1944 and then winning the fi rst open national competition for a design in 1950. The fi rst was of white-fronted geese, while the second portrayed trumpeter swans. He wrote and illustrated an article for the National Geographic Society, as well as illustrating nineteen others between 1939 and 1968. His drawings and paintings
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were featured in the Book of Dogs, Song and Garden Birds of North America, Water Prey and Game Birds of North America, Wondrous World of Fishes, Wild Animals of North America, Birds of Colorado, Birds of the Republic of Panama, and the last one, in 1975, was Breeding Birds of North Dakota. Unfortunately, only four of the 24 paintings and some of the many drawings he had prepared for the book, Fading Trails--The Story of Endangered American Wildlife, were used, the fi rm contracted by the government citing the restrictions on supplies during World War II as the reason. He and others were disappointed when it was published in that reduced form in 1942. The Treasury Department used the eagle from Walter’s painting of an eagle and an osprey on dollar coins starting in 1971. This same eagle had previously been copied by an artist, who created a patch on the suits of the Apollo 11 Space Team. Walter was very helpful and caring toward younger artists looking for help. He was known to give away his art to those he liked, but quote extremely high prices for those he did not. He was very upset when his art was plagiarized, but was not opposed to its use when requested, including the use by the Territory of Papua and New Guinea of some of his bird paintings for their postage stamps. He painted an enormous variety of nature-related subject matter with amazing style and accuracy. In 1967, the Department of the Interior gave him its highest honor, the Conservation Service Award. His artistry has been inspirational for many people. Walter was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1971. Walter died of a stroke on January 10, 1979, in Lynchburg, Virginia.
ALFRED CLEVELAND WEED Alfred was born on July 28, 1881, in North Rose, New York. Alfred attended college at Cornell University and did post graduate work there after earning his BA degree. In the early 1900s through the 1930s, he was on the staff of the Field Museum in Chicago and became assistant curator for Ichthyology and Herpetology in 1920. In 1921, they renamed the departments and it appears that Alfred became assistant curator for fi shes, reptiles, and amphibians, but in 1922 someone else became the assistant curator for reptiles and
amphibians, while Alfred remained as assistant curator for fi shes. Alfred was a participant on a trip to Greenland in 1927 or 1928 to study marine life. Alfred was later employed by the National Museum of Natural History as an ichthyologist. Alfred was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1912 and then terminated his membership in 1945. Alfred was married to Ida Belle Rosbrook and they had a son, Alfred, Jr., who was born in 1915 in Syracuse, New York. Alfred died on November 30, 1953.
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ELIZABETH FORTSON WELLS Beth was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on March 4, 1943, the second of three daughters of William Alwin Fortson and Julia Grimmet Fortson. She was raised on a cotton farm three miles north of town, where the high points of her childhood included country walks with her parents, horseback rides with friends along the Red River levees, and frequent trips to the family fi shing and hunting lodge on Cross Lake, about 10 miles away, always looking at the plants. Her father, a dentist with a love of gardening, believed that his daughters should know their local native trees and shrubs, and that they should all receive a strong liberal arts education that included biology and chemistry. Beth’s fi rst paid employment was rounding up cows on horseback for a neighbor when she was 12 years old. Beth graduated from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, in 1965 with a major in chemistry. In November 1965, she married David Marsden Wells of Wilmington, North Carolina, whom she had met while an undergraduate. For three years she taught chemistry laboratories at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, living on Wrightsville Beach, but within the fi rst year realized how much she missed botanizing. She took her fi rst two formal botany courses, plant taxonomy and plant ecology, during the summer of 1966 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while her husband spent the summer working on his dissertation in Old English. The exciting world of keys, plant classifi cation, and phytography opened to her during C. Ritchie Bell’s course in plant taxonomy, where she collected and identifi ed 200 species. In Albert E. Radford’s course in plant ecology, she trekked over North Carolina from the mountains to the Outer Banks and learned plant communities and more plants. She completed an MA in botany at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1970, producing a thesis on the vascular fl ora of the 11,000-acre Uwharrie Wildlife Management Area in Montgomery County, North Carolina, under the direction of Albert E. Radford. After a few years of teaching general biology at the University of Richmond, she returned to work toward a PhD degree in Botany at Chapel Hill, producing a dissertation on Heuchera (Saxifragaceae) in eastern North America under the direction of Clifford R. Parks and Max H. Hommersand, which she completed in 1977. She spent the next two years in the laboratory of Bruce A. Bohm, in the botany department of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, working on fl avonoids of Heuchera and Mitella, while her husband worked as an editor in Vancouver. Their son, William Fortson Wells, was born in Vancouver in June 1979. In August 1979, she joined the Department of Biological Sciences at the George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and combined an academic career with motherhood, while Will progressed through his education. She has taught courses in fi eld botany, fl ora of the mid-Atlantic states, plant ecology, plant taxonomy, plant evolution, and medical botany since 1979 at George Washington University. She has worked on a monograph of Heuchera in North America and the vascular fl ora of several local sites: Huntley Meadows Park, historic Mount Vernon, Fort Belvoir, Plummers Island, and the Dulles
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Greenway artifi cial wetland in Loudoun County. Beth is especially interested in native plants of the eastern seaboard states and alien species introduced early in colonial history of North America, and is working on a modern rendering of Gronovius’s 1762 Flora Virginica. Currently, she is collaborating with geologist Richard Tollo of George Washington University on the geobotanical ecology of the Central Appalachians. Beth was elected to membership in the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in April 2000, and was elected to the board of managers for the 2000 to 2002 period.
ALEXANDER WETMORE Alex was born on June 18, 1886, in North Freedom, Wisconsin. He was interested in birds as a child. He had his fi rst published article at age 13, called My Experience with a Red-headed Woodpecker. By age 15, he was reading several ornithology books, including Bird-Lore and Frank M. Chapman’s Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America. He also began fi eld work and collection and preparation of bird skins. In high school he went on his fi rst trip to collect birds with his physical geography teacher. He attended the University of Kansas while working at the Museum of Natural History there. He earned his AB degree there in 1912, and then moved onto the George Washington University to earn his MA degree in 1916 and his PhD degree in 1920. He was awarded an honorary ScD in 1932, an ScD from the University of Wisconsin in 1946, a DSc from Centre College in Kentucky in 1947, and a DSc from Ripon College in 1959. In 1908, Alex had the experience of meeting one of the men he looked up to, Frank M. Chapman, at the American Museum of Natural History. On the same trip he asked James Chapin and Ludlow Griscom to take him out to Central Park during lunch to see a European starling, which seems amazing now, considering how far and how quickly they have spread. Alex worked at the Smithsonian Institution for much of his career. He is remembered for spending hours up in a tower of the Smithsonian building studying the barn owls that nested there and their droppings. He was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1945 to 1952 and resisted pressure to close the tower during this time. Later the tower was closed by a different administrative group. However, when Dr. S. Dillon Ripley became secretary and decided to open it for the owls to nest again, he gave the 86-year-old Dr. Wetmore the chance personally to remove the metal sheet that had blocked the opening. Alex became a specialist in migrating birds and focused his studies on the Isthmus of Panama, the major fl yway for birds migrating between North and South America, starting in the mid-1940s and continuing for over 20 years. There he discovered 77 new species of birds. He also spent a great deal of time studying fossil birds. He marked as “the high point of my ornithological life” a trip he made to Lake Nakuru in Kenya, where he observed tens of thousands of fl amingos. Also on this trip, he attempted to stop the Land Rover in which the fi eld expedition was riding at a fast pace while tracking a pride of lions, for a view of a duck. This is an example of what others recognize as his dedication and love of ornithology. National Geographic printed many of his best known books and articles. He wrote The Book of Birds (1932), Song and Garden Birds (1964), and Water, Prey, and Game Birds of North America (1965). Alex was a member of National Geographic’s board of trustees for almost 40 years, and for 35 of those years he was a part of the committee on research and exploration. He held high standards for authenticity, and was perceptive about birds after all of his years studying them. An example of this was when he wanted to get a photograph of a frog catching a sparrow, as he had seen occur, for one of his books. When the fi rst photo was brought to him, he commented, “that bird is unhappy,” and perceived that it had been a staged photo with the bird tied down. To
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the photographer’s dismay, he was not satisfi ed. Alex was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and many other national and local organizations. He was a long-time member of the Cosmos Club and was president of it in 1938. Alex was married to Fay Holloway on October 13, 1912. They had one daughter, Margaret Fenwick Harlan. After a divorce, he married Beatrice Thielan in December, 1953. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1915. He served as president from 1928 to 1931, and was awarded honorary membership in 1978. Alex died in December, 1978, in Washington, D. C. A memorial plaque was installed on Plummers Island for this popular and admired ornithologist.
CHARLES FAY WHEELER Charles was born on June 14, 1842, in Mexico, Oswego County, New York. In 1857, he entered the Mexico Academy in his hometown. He joined the Union Army in 1862 and spent the winter encamped on a hill in the vicinity of what is now Howard University. The exposure and hardships were too much and he was discharged March 21, 1863, never fully recovering. He went to Hubbardston, Michigan, where he was to recuperate in open air. During this time he became acquainted with plants that became an all-consuming interest while he ran a drug and book store. He became acquainted with Erwin F. Smith and planned a fl ora of Michigan, published in 1881, and revised twelve years later by Wheeler and Beal. In 1889, he was called to the Michigan Agricultural College as instructor in the Botany Department under W. J. Beal and made assistant professor in 1895. During this period he worked towards a BS degree, which he received in 1891. In 1907, his Alma Mater bestowed on him a doctorate. In 1902, he was induced to come to Washington to work at the Bureau of Plant Industry where he was famous for identifying unknowns. He joined the Botanical Society of Washington in November 1902 and served as president from 1907 to 1908. Although he published little he was highly regarded by his peers. Charles died on March 5, 1910. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, within sight of the hills on the farther side of the river where, in a soldiers’ camp, he contracted the illness that was perhaps the determining cause of his botanical career. Charles was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1903.
EDGAR THEODORE WHERRY Edgar was born on September 10, 1885, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at the Friends Central School from 1897 to 1902 and the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a BS degree in chemistry in 1906 and a PhD degree in mineralogy in 1908. He taught at Lehigh University from 1908 to 1913, and became an assistant curator of mineralogy at the Smithsonian in 1913. Although he had no botanical training, he became interested in the relation of plants to underlying rock, publishing his fi rst ecological paper on Camptosorus (walking fern) on mica-gneiss rock in the Potomac Valley, a pioneer study of the range in soil reaction to a single species. In connection with this, he developed a method for determining soil acidity in the fi eld by dyes, a procedure that became commonplace. He specialized in identifi cation of minerals by optical-
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crystallographic properties. In 1917, he was invited to join the Bureau of Chemistry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and became the fi rst offi cial in the world with the title of crystallographer. A beekeeper brought a problem to the Bureau: honey in his hives was crystallizing. Edgar determined the crystals to be a rare and valuable sugar, melezitose, and he was sent to ascertain the origin. It came from honeydew of nearby pine trees but, in the preparation for the trip, he had noted the rare box huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera) occurred in the county. He collected roots for culture. These came to the attention of Frederick Coville who was looking for someone to help bring blueberries into cultivation. Edgar collaborated on the project, traveling widely to obtain soil acidity data on pertinent native plants. Beside technical articles, this resulted in his fi rst book in 1928, The Wild Flowers of Mt. Desert Island, Maine. In 1935, he rediscovered the “lost” Elliottia racemosa and collected the fi rst seed ever found. He had long been photographing plants and printing them on glass slides that he water colored and used for lectures to the Wild Flower Preservation Society and to garden clubs all over the Northeast. He became far more widely known as a botanist than a crystallographer and was invited in 1930 to join the Department of Botany at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught until his retirement in 1955. During this period he developed a State Wild Flower Preserve, served as president of the American Fern Society from 1934 to 1938, reorganizing its affairs and published in 1937 a booklet Guide to Eastern Ferns, founded a new periodical, Journal of the American Rock Garden Society, in 1942, and helped revivify that organization. In 1948, he prepared The Wild Flower Guide and was made honorary national president of the Wild Flower Preservation Society. In 1955, he published a major taxonomic revision, The Genus Phlox. This was followed by The Fern Guide of 1961, the Southern Fern Guide of 1964, and in 1979 Atlas of the Flora of Pennsylvania. In 1973, the American Rock Garden established the Edgar T. Wherry Award. In 1985, the Pteridological Section of the Botanical Society of America renamed their best contributed paper award the Edgar T. Wherry Award to honor “Dr. Wherry’s many contributions to fl oristics and patterns of evolution of ferns.” Not many are honored by being given awards. Few are honored by having an award named for them, let alone two awards! He was awarded the Mary Soper Pope Award on his 79th birthday (September 10, 1964) by the Cranbrook Institute of Science for “noteworthy and distinguished accomplishment in the fi eld of the plant sciences.” He died on May 19, 1982, in Philadelphia. Edgar was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1917, became a non-resident member in 1931, and was awarded an honorary membership in 1974.
CHARLES DAVID WHITE
Charles was born in Palmyra, New York, July 1, 1862. He received a BS degree from Cornell University in 1886, that same year joining the U.S. Geological Survey as assistant paleontologist. From that grade he advanced steadily to chief geologist in 1912, a position he fi lled until 1922, and his latest title was that of principal geologist. Charles early work was concerned with the fossil plants from the Cretaceous sediments occurring on the coastal plain from Virginia to Martha’s Vineyard Island, but most of his life’s work was concentrated on the paleobotanic, stratigraphic, and genetic problems connected with the origin and occurrence of coal and
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petroleum. Numerous papers on these subjects bear witness to his industry and productivity. At the time of his death he was engaged in an extensive study of the coal fl oras of Illinois and Oklahoma. Charles was honorary curator of fossil plants at the U.S. National Museum; research associate of the Carnegie Institution; and a member of many scientifi c societies, including the National Academy, American Philosophical Society, Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Washington Academy of Sciences. He was honored with an ScD degree from the University of Rochester in 1923 and from Williams College in 1925. One of his recent awards was the Walcott Medal in April 1934, for his investigations of primitive life in early geologic strata. Charles was one of the earliest members of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, being elected in 1901. He served on the board of managers from 1931 until his death. Charles died at his home, 2812 Adams Mill Road, Washington, D.C., on February 7, 1935.
ALAN THOMAS WHITTEMOREAlan was born on May 16, 1957, in Redwood City, California,
of Canadian parents. The family spent a lot of time outdoors, and Alan learned his botany in California and on family trips to British Columbia. He earned his BS degree in chemistry and botany at the University of California, Davis, in 1978, where he supplemented his class work with work in the University’s arboretum and herbarium. The summer after graduation was spent working as a volunteer in the herbarium of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Alan then went to the north coast of California to enter the masters’ program at Humboldt State University, where he worked on liverwort taxonomy from 1978 through 1980. Alan returned to the Bay area to work as a peptide chemist, but left after one year to enter the PhD program in botany at the University of Texas at Austin, working on the taxonomy and terpene chemistry of several genera of Asteraceae and receiving his PhD degree in 1987.
Alan spent most of the next 13 years in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1988 through 1990, he did postdoctoral work in Barbara Schaal’s lab at Washington University, using DNA markers to estimate introgressive gene fl ow among several species of oak. In 1991, he moved to the Missouri Botanical Garden. There, he mainly worked on the Flora of North America project, writing treatments and assisting with the editing. Other projects included work on bryophyte taxonomy and participation in several foreign collecting expeditions. From 1993 to 2000, he also taught evening classes at Washington University.
Alan came to Washington, D.C., in 2000 to become the research taxonomist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Floral and Nursery Crop Research Unit, and supervisor of the 650,000-specimen herbarium of the U.S. National Arboretum, one of the few herbaria in the country to emphasize both wild and cultivated
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plants. Alan carries out research on the taxonomy and evolutionary genetics of various groups of woody plants, primarily the oaks and hackberries.
Alan has worked on the taxonomy and evolution of many different plant groups. He published research on 20 different families of fl owering plants, plus mosses and liverworts, and carried out fi eldwork in the United States, Mexico, Belize, Kazakhstan, Armenia, China, and the Russian Far East. Alan is currently editor-in-chief of the journal Systematic Botany (American Society of Plant Taxonomists) and has served as president of the Botanical Society of Washington. In addition to botany, Alan enjoys astronomy, history, and walking.
He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 2004.
ROBERT WHITE WILLIAMS Robert was born in 1877. He worked as a conservationist and lawyer for the Department of Agriculture. Robert was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1905 and awarded honorary membership in 1939. He died in 1940.
FRANCIS S. L. WILLIAMSON Francis was born in 1917. He received a BS degree from San Diego State University in 1950, an MA degree from the University of California, Berkley, in 1955, and an DSc degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1968. He worked for many years as a biologist with the Chesapeake Bay Center. He published 18 papers between 1955 and 1983. Most of his papers focused on the helminth fauna of avian species. He also wrote on the distribution and abundance of various species of birds. His research investigations were mainly conducted in Alaska. He was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1972 and terminated membership in 1983.
LONNIE L. WILLIAMSON Lonnie was born on November 12, 1939, in Jackson County, Georgia. He grew up in a farm family and graduated from Jefferson High School in Jefferson, Georgia. Lonnie earned an ABJ degree from the University of Georgia’s School of Journalism in 1960. He received an MS degree in wildlife management from University of Georgia (Athens) School of Forest Resources in 1969. Two years of postgraduate studies in natural resource economics were completed at the University of Maryland in 1972. Lonnie began his professional career in 1958 as a reporter for the Athens Banner Herald in Athens,
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Georgia. He headed the outdoor and newspaper advertising division for Williams and Company Advertising in Athens from 1966 to 1970 and also was research associate for the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine. In 1970, he moved to Washington, D.C., as editor of the Outdoor News Bulletin for the Wildlife Management Institute. Lonnie was elected secretary of the Institute in 1975 and vice president and treasurer in 1987. He retired from the Institute in 1999. Equally at home in journalism or wildlife ecology, Lonnie worked from 1984 to 1995 as editor-at-large for Outdoor Life magazine. He has contributed hundreds of articles to other magazines and publications and has served as president and board chairman for the Mason-Dixon Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America. He has been a member of the board of directors for the Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage and the Pinchot Institute for Conservation. Lonnie received the Jade of Chiefs Award from the Outdoor Writers Association of America in 1983, which is the association’s highest recognition for conservation achievement. He is included in the book National Leaders of American Conservation published by the Smithsonian Institution and has received Distinguished Service awards from the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Military Fish and Wildlife Association. He was a resident of Arnold, Maryland, for many years, but then moved to Athens, Georgia, after retirement. Lonnie’s special interests include rare plants, bobwhite quail, history, livestock and stock dogs, and Ireland. He is a member of The Wildlife Society, International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and the Cosmos Club. Lonnie was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1986.
DON ELLIS WILSON Don was born in Davis, Oklahoma, on April 30, 1944. He lived in Nebraska, Texas, Oregon, and Washington as a youth and graduated from High School in Bisbee, Arizona, in 1961. He received a BS degree in wildlife management from the University of Arizona in Tucson in 1965. As an undergraduate, he made his fi rst trip to the tropics in 1964, and has returned each year since to conduct research on mammals. After a summer spent working for the National Park Service in a fi re tower in Grand Canyon National Park, he attended graduate school at the University of New Mexico, where he received an MS degree in 1967 and a PhD degree in 1970, both in biology. He also spent a summer working for the U.S. Forest Service as a naturalist in the Sandia Mountains. His master’s thesis dealt with ecological relationships of fi ve species of deer mice in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. His doctoral dissertation was on a small tropical insectivorous bat of Panama. Don began a long-term association with the Organization for Tropical Studies in 1968, and has returned to Costa Rica to teach in their tropical biology courses regularly ever since. In addition, he lived in Costa Rica for 15 months, studying seed predators on a National Science Foundation post-doctoral fellowship through the University of Chicago. He is a past chairman of the board of
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the Organization for Tropical Studies. In 1971, Don was hired as a research zoologist by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and stationed with the Biological Survey Unit at the National Museum of Natural History. He served as chief of the Mammal Section from 1973 to 1978, chief of the Museum Section from 1978 to 1983, and chief of the Biological Survey from 1983 to 1990. He was named director of Biodiversity Programs at the Smithsonian in September, 1990. In 2000, he returned to the Division of Mammals as senior scientist and curator of mammals. Don served as president of the American Society of Mammalogists from 1986 to 1988. He is past-president of the Association for Tropical Biology as well. He was the editor of the Journal of Mammalogy for fi ve years and of Mammalian Species and Special Publications for three years. Don also serves on several editorial boards. He is on the scientifi c board of directors of Bat Conservation International, The Biodiversity Foundation for Africa, Integrated Conservation Research, and The Lubee Foundation. Don is the writer of over 200 scientifi c publications including books on the Mammals of New Mexico, three monographs on bats, three volumes on Biodiversity, and Mammal species of the World. In 1997, he published Bats in Question - The Smithsonian Answer Book. In recent years, he has edited a series of books for the Educational Publisher, Dorling Kindersley, including Animal, Human, the Smithsonian Handbook of Mammals, and Mammal. He also wrote a fi eld guide of North American mammals and the Smithsonian Book of North American Mammals. He has given over 70 papers at scientifi c meetings. His research on bats has taken him to more than 65 countries around the world. He is the recipient of a Smithsonian Institution Award for Excellence in Tropical Biology, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Outstanding Publication Award, a Reconocimiento for Outstanding Contributions to Science from the Associacion Mexicana de Mastozoologia, the Gerritt S. Miller Award from the North American Symposium on Bat Research, and the Hartley H. T. Jackson Award of the American Society of Mammalogists. He recently received the American Society of Mammologists’ highest award: honorary membership. Don resides near Gainesville, Virginia, with his wife, Kate, whom he married in 1962, a retired middle school counselor in the Fairfax County Public School System. They have two daughters: Wendy, who teaches in Fairfax County; and Kristy, who teaches at Northern Illinois University; and four granddaughters. Don was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1974, and has served as chairman of the house and grounds and biological survey committees, as well as vice-president from 1990 to 1993 and president from 1993 to 1996.
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WILLIS WAGNER WIRTH Willis was born on a farm near Dunbar, Nebraska, on October 17, 1916. He went to Peru State Teachers College in Nebraska from 1933 to 1938 and majored in biology, after which he moved on to Iowa State University to receive a BS degree in zoology and entomology in 1940. He attended Louisiana State University, earning an MS degree in entomology in 1947, and then a PhD degree from the University of California at Berkeley in systematic entomology in 1950. Willis served as a commissioned offi cer in the U.S. Public Health Service during World War II. He worked on malaria control in Louisiana and then quarantine service in both Mississippi and Honolulu, Hawaii. In Hawaii he discovered that the oriental fruit fl y and other Asian and West Pacifi c insects had become established. From 1947 to 1949, Willis worked as a teaching assistant in insect systematics and forest entomology at the University of California at Berkeley. During this time he spent his summers studying encephalitis viruses and taking mosquito surveys for the California Department of Health. Willis became a research entomologist for the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., in 1949. At this time he was studying Diptera, particularly biting midges of the family Ceratopogonidae. He undertook many special assignments for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1951, he studied biting midges in Florida, and in 1953 and 1955, he went to the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas. In 1956, he was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, Australia. There he studied the biology and taxonomy of Australian biting midges. He traveled to Europe in 1957, to visit museums and study the collections of earlier taxonomists. In 1961, he worked at the New York State Museum, and in 1965, worked on a Smithsonian-Archbold-Bredin biological survey of Dominica. He went to Panama in 1967, to study the breeding areas of neotropical biting midges and then returned to the Great Plains to study biting midges and brine fl ies two years later. Throughout his years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Willis was awarded citations for superior performance several times. He wrote more than 400 scientifi c publications, mostly on topics of public health and Ephydridae, Chironomidae, Canaceidae, Dolichopodidae, and Ceratopogonidae. He retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1983. He then moved to Gainesville, Florida, but remained active as a research associate of the Florida Department of Plant Industry. He also continued to present and publish papers, help graduate students, and share his knowledge and collection. Willis held positions in many scientifi c organizations. He was a life member and fellow of the Entomological Society of America, serving on the editorial board from 1960 to 1964 and as secretary of Section A in 1960. He was a member of the American Mosquito Control Association, the Entomological Society of Washington, the Pacifi c Coast Entomological Society, the Hawaiian Entomological Society, the Florida Entomological Society, the Kansas Entomological Society, the Association for Tropical Biology, the Biological Society of Washington, and the Society for Systematic Zoology. He also was an adjunct professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland and the University of Florida and a research associate of the Florida State Collection of Arthropods. Willis was elected a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1975 and became a non-resident member in 1983 until his death on September 3, 1994, in Gainesville, Florida. Willis is remembered as a kind, generous, and friendly man.
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JOHN JULIUS WURDACK John was born on April 28, 1921, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated with “High Honor” from Carrick High School, Pittsburgh in 1938. In 1942, he received a BS degree in botany at the University of Pittsburgh and was drafted to serve as a sanitary engineer during World War II. In 1946, he was assigned to Parnamirim Air Field, Natal, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil and collected plants. Later from 1946 to 1948, he was posted to Japan and also visited China and Japan. In 1949, he earned a second BS degree in sanitary engineering at the University of Illinois and took a job as technical assistant at the New York Botanical Garden. In 1952, he received his PhD degree, with his dissertation on a revision of the Andean genus Brachyotum (Melastomataceae) published in 1953. He undertook eleven major expeditions to Venezuela. In 1960, he became associate curator at the U.S. National Herbarium, now in the National Museum of Natural History, and undertook his last major expedition to the Marañon River in Peru. He was a charter member of and very active in the American Rock Garden Society. He retired in 1991, but came to work every day until the last years of his life. He died of cancer on May 13, 1998, in Lanham, Maryland. His son Kenneth has been a guest at many Island outings. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1961 and was a faithful attendee of all workdays and outings. One of his special delights was collecting bags of rich, river-deposited sandy loam near Plummers Island. He was remembered for his willingness to help colleagues with natural history issues and his gravelly voice.
LEE EMMETT YEAGER Lee was born in Sky Lake, Mississippi, in 1906. He had very humble beginnings, starting his education in a country school with six boys and one teacher. It was in sixth grade that he had his fi rst girl classmate. He often recounted his fascination with the wildlife around him as he grew up, as well as stories about his pastimes, including yoking chickens like oxen, chasing grasshoppers for fi sh bait, and putting turtles in the nests of hens. Later on, Lee attended an academy and then went to college. He earned a BS degree in 1932 at Mississippi State College, and an MS degree in 1933. He received an MF degree in 1933 and a PhD degree in 1937 in forestry and wildlife management from the University of Michigan. Lee began his professional career as an assistant entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1937 to 1938. In 1938, he began work as a forester/biologist with Illinois State Natural History Survey and continued there until 1945. He then went to work as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and remained there
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until he retired. Lee is the fi rst wildlife biologist known to have published an article (actually two) about the wildlife habitat values of coal strip-mined lands. He also was one of the fi rst to study fl oodplains and their value and effects on wildlife, as well as the importance of other wetlands. Over 100 of his writings and articles have been published, covering many topics, including wetlands, furbearers, big-game range ecology, wildlife-land-use relationships, and squirrels. Lee served as chairman of The Wildlife Society index committee, which painstakingly prepared an index of all printed Transactions of the American Game Conference, 1928-35, and for the Transactions of the North American Wildlife Conference, 1937-47. He was a dedicated member of The Wildlife Society and held many positions within the organization. He was treasurer from 1941 to 1943, vice president in 1944, president in 1945, and region four representative from 1950 to 1951 and 1953 to 1961. In 1969, he was awarded honorary membership in The Wildlife Society and in the next year the Distinguished Service Award of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Lee also was an important advisor and helper to over 45 graduate students in his roles as leader of the Colorado Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit from 1947 to 1962 and biologist in charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Cooperative Unit Program from 1946 to 1947 and 1963 to 1967. Lee was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1965. Lee is remembered by students as dedicated, conscientious, and full of energy. He died on June 4, 1983, of stomach cancer.
HOWARD CLINTON ZAHNISER Howard was born on February 25, 1906, in Franklin, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Tionesta, Pennsylvania. Howard was educated at Greenville (Illinois) College and received an AB degree in 1927. He later studied for a master’s degree at George Washington University, but did not write the degree thesis. He received an honorary doctor of letters from Greenville College in 1957. Howard was known as Zahnie among his associates and had many close friends especially in the Wilderness Society. Zahnie began his career as a newspaperman and high school teacher. He later served as editor of the Bureau of Biological Survey (later the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and then as information director of the Bureau of Plant Industry in the Department of Agriculture from 1942 to 1945. He directed publicity for the World War II Victory Gardens effort. Zahnie wrote a monthly book review column in Nature Magazine for 25 years beginning in 1935. For many years he also wrote the annual “Conservation” entry for the Encyclopedia Britannica Annual Yearbook and contributed conservation topics to the Agriculture Yearbooks of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He also had a regular radio program about natural resources for several years. Zahnie was a book collector and life-long student of the Book of Job, Dante Alighieri, William Blake, and Henry Thoreau as well as the pantheon of nature writers, whose work he chronicled in Nature Magazine. In 1945, he was approached by the Wilderness Society to serve as executive secretary and editor of its magazine, The Living Wilderness. At the time, his wife Alice was expecting their fourth child. Despite reduced pay and no benefi ts, Zahnie accepted the job because of his devotion to the cause. He grew to become the strength of the organization, of which he had been a charter member from its founding in 1935, and long served as the entire Washington offi ce. He later became executive director. Zahnie proposed a national wilderness preservation system, and giving the idea shape and substance
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was his fi rst challenge. It was Zahnie who answered the hard questions and formulated the language that later became the 1964 Wilderness Act. It also was Zahnie who held together the coalition of conservation groups and conservation cooperators that pursued the legislation. Some of his colleagues tried to get him to change the word “untrammeled” to “undisturbed” or another more modern word, but Zahnie was persistent and forceful and defi ned untrammeled as “not being subject to human controls and manipulations that hamper the free play of natural forces.” The National Wilderness Preservation System, when created by the Wilderness Act, embraced 54 areas and nine million acres. Today the Wilderness System contains more than 105 million acres of federal public lands. He served on the boards of several conservation organizations, helped with the early organization of The Nature Conservancy, advised the Secretary of the Interior on conservation matters, and served as president of the Thoreau Society for the 1956 to 1957 term. Zahnie married Alice Bernita Hayden in 1936. The couple had four children: Alison Howard Mathias, Esther B., Karen Elizabeth, and Edward D. Zahnie was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1946 and remained a member until his death from a heart attack on May 5, 1964. Zahnie’s widow, Alice, attended the signing of the Wilderness Act by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964. Zahnie is buried next to the Allegheny River in Riverside Cemetery in Tionesta, Pennsylvania, which he considered his home town. A Pennsylvania state historical marker for Zahnie and his work for wilderness was dedicated nearby on August 13, 2001. Environmental historian Mark Harvey wrote a biography, Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the path to the Wilderness Act, published by the University of Washington Press in 2005.
RICHARD LAURENCE ZUSI Dick was born on January 27, 1930, in Winchester, Massachusetts, but grew up in Toronto, Ontario. He attended Northwestern University for a BA degree in 1951 and the University of Michigan for an MS degree in 1953 and a PhD degree in 1959 in zoology. He taught at the University of Maine from 1958 to 1963. Phil Humphrey hired him in 1963 as a research scientist in the Division of Birds at the National Museum of Natural History. Dick specialized in functional anatomy, behavior, evolution, and classifi cation of birds. He was considered one of the world’s experts on functional anatomy and his work focused on avian jaw mechanics and the evolution of structural complexes. Dick’s scholarly modus operandi is exemplifi ed by three classic papers on the avian skull: A functional and evolutionary analysis of rhynchokinesis in birds (Smithsonian Institution, 1984), A feeding adaptation of the jaw articulation in the new
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world jays (Corvidae) (Auk, 1987), and Patterns of diversity in the avian skull (University Chicago Press, 1993). He was co-author with George Watson and Bob Storer and illustrator of The Preliminary Field Guide to the Birds of the Indian Ocean (Simithsonian, 1963). Dick was largely responsible for the development of the Smithsonian’s avian skeleton and fl uid-preserved collections, which now rank as the world’s most complete. His pioneering World Inventory of Avian Skeletal Specimens was one of the fi rst and best efforts to inventory a particular biological resource in systematic collections. He has personally collected specimens in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Dominica, and Iceland, as well as many locations in the United States and Canada. Dick was extensively active in committees, exhibits, and administration at the Smithsonian, including work on the Zoo research committee, which planned the layout of the Research Building at the National Zoo. He also conducted the research and design of 17 cases in the Osteology Hall and was principal curator of the Roger Tory Peterson exhibit. Dick served on numerous doctoral committees, advised six post-doctoral students, and graciously mentored colleagues in the lost art of comparative anatomy. He was elected a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1971. He maintained an offi ce in the Bird Division, and worked on an National Science Foundation-funded study of morphological variation and phylogenetic relationships among the orders of birds. He collaborated with Bradley Livezey of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh on the project. Dick enjoyed a full outside life of activities in spite of his active professional role. His interests included jazz appreciation, classical piano, bird watching, nature study, travel, gardening, tennis, good food and beer, and literature. He also was close to his children and grandchildren. His great sense of humor, his quiet considerate manner, and his well-adjusted ego made him a popular person among his colleagues. He was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1965 and resigned in 1979.
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BIOLOGICAL STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS
One of the principal objectives of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club has been a thorough biological survey of Plummers Island and mainland property, and a less com plete study, for comparative purposes, of much of the nearby territory. The fi rst committee on fauna and fl ora was appointed on October 2, 1902. Collecting and study have been carried on by this committee in earlier years, and more recently by individual Club members, guests, or by grantees of research awards from the Club. Some remarkable results have been obtained. Several formal lists of fl ora and fauna as well as contributions on life history, behavior, and ecology have been published as a series under the title The Natural History of Plummers Island in series publications of the Biological Society of Washington. Many other papers have been published that have treated to some extent the fl ora and fauna of Plummers Island. Indeed, it can truthfully be said that Plummers Island, among systematic biologists at least, has become one of the world’s most famous collecting spots and type localities. Great extensions of ranges have been noted; several species, heretofore known only from such areas as Texas and Mexico, and in one or two instances even from Europe, have been collected on the property. These discoveries show both the great need for intensive local studies and the great rewards in the way of new knowledge that await enthusiastic natural history collectors and investigators. Part of the cleared land on the mainland property was used under lease for a nominal sum from time to time for agricultural purposes by persons resident in the house at Lock 11. Club members attempted a little gardening during war years. A proposed project to establish an Arboretum Columbianum on the mainland
property re sulted in the transplanting of a number of the rarer shrubs, trees, and vines of the region, but no such transplanting has been done in recent years. Only a very few of the rarest, as hemlock, white and table mountain pines, and rhododendron, have been planted on the Island itself, where the Club intends that nature shall take its course so far as possible unmolested. Records are kept of all introductions. Water-level records of the Potomac River were kept from 1933 to 1950, and detailed precipitation and maximum-minimum temperatures were recorded from 1966 to 1969 by means of a rain gauge and a 7-day recording thermometer. The Club in 1961 approved the appointment of a Research Grants Committee to pass on requests for grants
to assist biological research, including publication on the fauna and fl ora of Plummers Island and environs. The grants are made to both members and nonmembers from interest realized from investment of the compensation received from the U.S. Government for the Club’s mainland property and normally range upward to $2,500. A brochure was prepared subsequently bring ing the research grants program to the attention of the biological com-munity in area universities and other institutions. Many of the following listed publi cations subsequent to 1961 have been assisted by grants for fi eld research and/or publication of the results.
298
NATURAL HISTORY PUBLICATIONS OF PLUMMERS ISLAND, MARYLAND
The series “Natural History of Plummers Island, Maryland,” was published in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington as listed below, except for XX, XXV, XXVI, and XXIX: I. Introduction, by William R. Maxon. Vol. 48, p. 115-117. August 22, 1935. II. Flowering plants and ferns, by Ellsworth P. Killip and Sidney F. Blake. Vol. 48, pp. 118-134. August 22, 1935. III. Mosses, by Emery C. Leonard. Vol. 48, pp. 135-137. August 22, 1935. IV. Birds, by Albert K. Fisher, Vol. 48, pp. 159-167. November 15, 1935. V. Fungi, by John A. Stevenson and Edna M. Ermold. Vol. 49, pp. 123-131. August 22, 1936. VI. Reptiles and amphibians, by Maurice K. Brady. Vol. 50, pp. 137-139. September 10, 1937. VII. Hepaticae, by Emory C. Leonard and M. E. Pierce. Vol. 52, pp. 21-22. March 11, 1939. VIII. Lichens, by Emory C. Leonard and Ellsworth P. Killip. Vol. 52, pp. 23-26. March 11, 1939. IX. Mammals, by Edward A. Goldman and Hartley H. T. Jackson. Vol. 52, pp. 131-134. October 11, 1939. X. Flowering plants and ferns-Supplement 1, by Ellsworth P. Killip and Sidney F. Blake. Vol. 66, pp. 31-38. March 30, 1953. XI. Blue-green algae (Myxophyceae), by Francis Drouet. Vol. 67, pp. 239-241. November 15, 1954. XII. A biological note on Trypoxylon richardsi Sandhouse, by Karl V. Krombein. Vol. 72, pp. 101-102. July 24, 1959. XIII. Descriptions of new wasps from Plummers Island, Maryland (Hymenoptera: Aculeata), by Karl V. Krombein. Vol. 75, pp. 1-17. March 30, 1962. XIV. Biological notes and description of the larva and pupa of Copelatus glyphicus (Say) (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae), by Paul J. Spangler. Vol. 75, pp. 19-23. March 30, 1962. XV. Descriptions of the stages of Chaetodactylus krombeini, new species, a mite associated with the bee, Osmia lignaria Say (Acarina: Chaetodactylidae), by Edward W. Baker. Vol. 75, pp. 227-236. August 28, 1962. XVI. Biological notes on Chaetodactylus krombeini Baker, a parasitic mite of the megachilid bee, Osmia (Osmia) lignaria Say (Acarina: Chaetodactylidac), by Karl V. Krombein. Vol. 75, pp. 237-249. August 28, 1962. XVII. Annotated list of the wasps, by Karl V. Krombein. Vol. 76, pp. 255-280. December 31, 1963. XVIII. The hibiscus wasp, an abundant rarity, and its associates (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae), by Karl V. Krombein. Vol. 77, pp. 73-112. June 26, 1964. XIX. Annotated list of the aphids (Homoptera: Aphididae), by Mortimer D. Leonard. Vol. 79, pp. 117- 126. May 23, 1966. XX. Annotated list of the vertebrates, by Richard H. Manville, except birds by Alexander Wetmore and Manville. Special Publication, Washington Biologists’ Field Club, pp. 1-44. January 1968. XXI. Infestation of the lichen Parmelia baltimorensis Gyel. & For, by Hypogastrura packardi Folsom (Collembola), by Mason E. Hale, Jr. Vol. 85, pp. 287-296. August 30, 1972. XXII. Biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae). 1: introduction and key to genera, by Willis W. Wirth, Nipban C. Ratanaworabhan, and Donald H. Messersmith. Vol. 90, pp. 615-647. October 17, 1977. XXIII. Studies on lichen growth rate at Plummers Island, Maryland, by James D. Lawrey and Mason E. Hale, Jr. Vol. 90, pp. 698-725. October 17, 1977. XXIV. Biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae). 2: the species of the tribes Heteromyiini and Sphaeromimi, by Willis W. Wirth and William L. Grogan, Jr. Vol. 91, pp. 847-903. February 23, 1979. XXV. Biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), 3: the species of the tribe Stilobezziini, by Willis W. Wirth and William L. Grogan, Jr. Bulletin of the Biological Society of Washington No. 5, pp. 1-102. December 9, 1981.
299
XXVI. The ground beetles of a temperate forest site (Coleoptera: Carabidae): An analysis of fauna in relation to size, habitat selection, vagility, seasonality, and extinction, by Terry L. Erwin. Bulletin of the Biological Society of Washington No. 5, pp. 104-224. December 9, 1981. XXVII. The decline of forest breeding birds on Plummers Island, Maryland, and vicinity, by David W. Johnston and Daniel L. Winings. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 100:762-768. December 31, 1987. XXVII [XXVIII]. Current diversity, historical analysis, and biotic integrity of fi shes in the lower Potomac basin in the vicinity of Plummers Island, Maryland, by Wayne C. Starnes. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 115(2):273-320. 2002. XXIX. Checklist of the vascular plants of Plummers Island, Maryland, by Stanwyn G. Shetler, Sylvia S. Orli, Elizabeth F. Wells, and Marcie Beyersdorfer. Bulletin of the Biological Society of Washington 14:1-58. January 2006.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Among other publications (scientifi c and popular) dealing at least in part with Plummers Island or the Washington Biologists’ Field Club are the following:
Adamski, D., and Ronald W. Hodges. 1996. An annotated list of North American Blastobasinae (Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea: Coleophoridae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 98:708-740.Allan, Philip. 1952. Craspedacusta sowerbii in Maryland. Proceedings Biological Society of Washington 65:109-110. Bailey, Vernon. 1923. Mammals of the District of Columbia. Proceedings Biological Society of Washington 36:103-138. Baker, Edward, W. 1964. Vidia cooremani, a new species of Saproglyphidae from a crabronine wasp (Acarina). Entomology News 75:43-46.Banks, N., C. T. Greene, Waldo L. McAtee, and Raymond C. Shannon. 1916. District of Columbia Diptera: Syrphidae. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 29 173-204.Barber, Herbert S. 1951. North American fi refl ies of the genus Photuris. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 117(1). vi + 58 pp.Brown, John W. 2001. Species turnover in the leafrollers (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) of Plummers Island, Maryland: Assessing a century of inventory data. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 103:673-685.Brown, John W. 2005. Long-term data show declines in insect composition on Plummers Island, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park. Natural Resource Year In Review-2004:69.Brown, K. M., G. A. Baltazar, B. N. Weinstein, and M. B. Hamilton. 2003. Isolation and characterization of nuclear microsatellite loci in the anadromous marine fi sh Morone saxatilis (striped bass). Molecular Ecology Notes 3:414-416. Brown, K. M., G. A. Baltazar, and M. B. Hamilton. 2005. Reconciling nuclear microsatellite and mitochondrial marker estimates of population structure: breeding population structure of Chesapeake Bay striped bass (Morone saxatilis). Heredity 94:606-615. Busck, August. 1906. Notes on some tortricid genera with descriptions of new American species. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 19:173-182.Busck, August. 1906. New American Tineina. Canadian Entomologist 38:121-125.Busck, August. 1907. A review of the tortricid subfamily Phaloniinae with descriptions of new American species. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 15:19-36.
300
Busck, August. 1907. New genera and species of American Microlepidoptera. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 15:134-140.Busck, August. 1908. A generic revision of American moths of the family Oecophoridae with descriptions of new species. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 35(1644):187-207.Busck, August. 1909. Notes on Microlepidoptera, with descriptions of new North American species. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 11:87-103. Busck, August, and C. Heinrich. 1922. Life history of Ethmia macelhosiella Busck. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 24:1-9.Butte, Janardhan G. 1968. Revision of the tribe Chalepini of America north of Mexico (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). I. Genus Xenochalepus Weise. Coleopterist Bulletin 22(2):45-62. Butte, Janardhan G. 1968. II. Genus Chalepus Thunberg. Journal New York Entomology Society 76:117-133. Butte, Janardhan G. 1968. III. Genus Odontota Chevrolat. Coleopterist Bulletin 22(4):101-124. Christmas, Anne H. 1960. New span to unmask island jungle. Washington Evening Star, p. B3. (July 5). Clarke, John F. G. 1941. Revision of the North American moths of the family Oecophoridae, with descriptions of new genera and species. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 90:33-286.Cohn, D’Vera. 1994. Island under a microscope. Washington Post, p. C1,C7. (May 19).Cole, F. R., J. R. Malloch, and Waldo L. McAtee. 1924. District of Columbia Diptera: Tromoptera (Cyrtidae, Bombyliidae, Therevidae, Scenopidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 26:181-195.Cooke, May T. 1929. Birds of the Washington, D.C. region. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 42:1-80. Crawford, James C. 1909. A new family of parasitic Hymenoptera. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 11:63-64. Davis, Donald R. 1990. Superfamily Tineiodea, pp. 50-55. in Miller, Scott E. and Ronald W. Hodges (eds.), Primary types of microlepidoptera in the Museum of Comparative Zoology (with a discussion on V. T. Chambers’ work). Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 152.Donnelly, Thomas W. 1961. The Odonata of Washington, D.C., and vicinity. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 63:1-13. Ethridge, Mark, Jr. 1951. Biologists devote half century to lab on Potomac island. Washington Post, p. A-1. (August 20). Fischer, Max. 1967. Die nearktischen Arten der Gattung Synaldis (Hymenoptera, Braconidae). Polskie Pismo Entomologiczne 37:464-467. Fisher, James. 1955. Excerpt from “City in the Woods” [account of 1953 shad bake], pp. 51-52 in Wild America: the record of a 30,000 mile journey around the continent by a distinguished naturalist and his British colleague by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher. Boston: Houghton Miffl in. 434 pp. Fleming, Peggy, and Raclare Kanal. 1992. Newly documented species of vascular plants in the District of Columbia. Castanea 57:132-146. Frye, C. T., and C. Lea. 2000 (2001). Atlas and Annotated List of Carex (Cyperaceae) of Maryland and the District of Columbia. Maryland Naturalist 44(2):41-108. Gardner, Marshal C. 1950. A list of Maryland mammals; Part I, marsupials and insectivores; Part II, bats. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 63:65-68, 111-114. Gardner, Marshall C. 1950. A list of Maryland mammals. Part II, bats. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 63:111–114.Hale, Mason E., Jr. 1970. Single-lobe growth-patterns in the lichen Parmelia caperata. Bryologist 73:72-81. Hale, Mason E., Jr., and James D. Lawrey. 1985. Annual rate of lead accumulation in the lichen Pseudoparmelia baltimorensis. Bryologist 88:5-7. Hart, C. W., Jr. 1964. Two new entocytherid ostracods from the vicinity of Washington, D.C. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 77:243-246.
301
Heinrich, C. 1923. Revision of the North American moths of the subfamily Eucosminae of the family Olethreutidae. United States National Museum Bulletin 123, 298 pp.Heinrich, C. 1926. Revision of the North American moths of the subfamilies Laspeyresiinae and Olethreutinae. United States National Museum Bulletin 132, 216 pp.Hodges, Ronald W. 1962a. The genus Perimede Chambers in North America. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 64:145-154.Hodges, Ronald W. 1962b. A review of the genus Periploca with descriptions of nine new species. Pan- Pacifi c Entomologist 38:83-97.Hodges, Ronald W. 1964. A review of the North American moths of the family Walshiidae. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 115:289-330.Hodges, Ronald W. 1964. A review of the North American moths of the family Walshiidae. Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum 115:289-330. Hodges, Ronald W. 1969. Nearctic Walshiidae - notes and new taxa (Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 18:1-30. Hoffman, R. L., S. M. Roble, and W. E. Steiner, Jr. 2002. Thirteen additions to the known beetle fauna of Virginia (Coleoptera: Scirtidae, Bothrideridae, Cleridae, Tenebrionidae, Melyridae, Callirhipidae, Cerambycidae, Chrysomelidae). Banisteria 20:53-61.Hood, J. Douglas. 1917. An annotated list of the Thysanoptera of Plummer’s Island, Maryland. Insecutor Inscitiae Menstruus 5:53-65.Jordan, K. 1928. Siphonaptera collected during a visit to the Eastern United States of North America in 1927. Novitates Zoologicae 34:178-188. Jeannel, R. 1963. Supplement a la monographie des Anillini: sur quelques especes nouvelles de I’Amerique du Nord. Revue Francaise d’Entomologie 30:145-152. Kalmbach, E. R. 1968. An ornithological treasure awaits resurrection. Auk 85:703-706. [McAtee MS on bird names.] Karren, Jay. 1966. A revision of the genus Exema of America north of Mexico (Chrysomelidae, Coleoptera). University of Kansas Science Bulletin 46:647-695. Killip, Ellsworth P. 1931. Plants recently discovered on Plummers Island as a result of low-water conditions. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 44:111-115. Knab, F., and Raymond C. Shannon. 1916. Tanypezidae in the United States. Insecutor Inscitiae Menstruus 4:33-36. Krombein, Karl V. 1963. Notes on the Entomognathus of eastern United States. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 76:247-254. Krombein, Karl V. 1963. A new Chrysura from Plummers Island, Maryland. Entomology News 74:149-152. Krombein, Karl V. 1963. The host-parasite relationship of Xylocelia virginiana Rohwer and Omalus intermedius (Aaron). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 65:264. Krombein, Karl V. 1964. Miscellaneous prey records of solitary wasps, V. (Hymenoptera: Aculeata). Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 58:118-120. Krombein, Karl V. 1967. Trap-nesting wasps and bees: life histories, nests, and associates. Smithsonian Publication 4670, Smithsonian Press, Washington, D.C. vi + 570 pp. Lawrey, James D., and Mason E. Hale, Jr. 1981. Retrospective study of lichen lead accu mulation in the northeastern United States. Bryologist 84:449-456. Lawrey, James D., and Mason E. Hale, Jr. 1991. The species-area curve as an index of disturbance in saxicolous lichen communities. Bryologist 94:377-382. Lawrey, James D. 1992. Natural and randomly-assembled lichen communities compared using the species-area curve. Bryologist 95(2):137-141. Lawrey, James D., and Mason E. Hale, Jr. 1979. Lichen growth responses to stress induced by automobile exhaust pollution. Science 204:423- 424.
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Lea, C., and C. T. Frye. 2002. Carex (Cyperaceae) in the Potomac River Gorge of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Colombia. Bartonia No. 61:93-116. Leonard, Mortimer D. 1968. Further records of aphids from Plummers Island, Md. (Homoptera: Aphididae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 70:84. Long, E. John. 1957. A haven for the biologist is Plummers Island. Nature Magazine 50:465-468. Long, E. John. 1966. The island. American Forests 72:22-24, 59-61. Malloch, J. R., and Waldo L. McAtee. 1924. Flies of the family Drosophilidae of the District of Columbia region. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 37:25-42. Malloch, J. R., C. T. Greene, and Waldo L. McAtee. 1931. District of Columbia Diptera: Rhagionidae. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 33:213-220. Manville, Richard H. 1972. A “sister” organization. Cosmos Club Bulletin 25(5):7-10. Margolis, B. E., M. S. Castro, and R. L. Raesly. 2001. The impact of beaver impoundments on the water chemistry of two Appalachian streams. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 58:2271-2283. Margolis, B. E., R. L. Raesly, and D. L. Shumway. 2001. The effects of beaver-created wetlands on the benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages of two Appalachian streams. Wetlands 21(4):554-563. McAtee, Waldo L. 1908. Notes on an orthopterous leaf roller. Entomological News 19:488-491. McAtee, Waldo L. 1918. A sketch of the natural history of the District of Columbia. Bulletin of the Biological Society of Washington 1:1-142. McAtee, Waldo L., and Alfred C. Weed. 1915. First list of the fi shes of the vicinity of Plummers Island, Maryland. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 28:1-14. McAtee, Waldo L. 1920. Cercopidae of the vicinity of Washington, D.C., with the descriptions of new varieties of Clastoptera (Homoptera). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 33:171–176.McAtee, Waldo L. 1921. Membracidae of the vicinity of Washington, D.C. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 34:123-134.McAtee, Waldo L. 1927. Cicadidae of the vicinity of Washington, D.C. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 29:70-72.McAtee, Waldo L., and N. Banks. 1920. District of Columbia Diptera: Asilidae. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 22:13-33.McAtee, Waldo L., and A. N. Caudell. 1917. First list of the Dermaptera and Orthoptera of Plummers Island, Maryland, and vicinity. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 19:100-122.McAtee, Waldo L., and W. R. Walton. 1918. District of Columbia Diptera: Tabanidae. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 20:188-206.McComb, Charles W. 1963. A checklist and host index of the Diaspididae of Maryland and the District of Columbia. University of Maryland Entomology Leafl et 50, 38 pp., mimeo. McComb, Charles W. 1967. A revision of the Chelonus subgenus Microchelonus in North America north of Mexico (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). University of Maryland, Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin A-149. 148 pp. McComb, Charles W., and R. A. Bram. 1963. A checklist and host index of the tetranychoid mites of Maryland and nearby areas. University of Maryland Entomology Leafl et 49. 20 pp., mimeo. Miller, D. C. 1974. Revision of the New World Chaetarthria (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae). Entomologica Americana 49:1-123. Miller, S. E., and Ronald W. Hodges. 1990. Primary types of microlepidoptera in the Museum of Comparative Zoology (with a discussion on V. T. Chambers’ work). Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 152:45-87.
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Muesebeck, Carl F. W. 1963. A platygasterid parasite of certain wasp larvae. Beitraege zur Entomologie 13:391-394.Orr, R. L. 1994. Baseline survey of Odonata (dragonfl ies and damselfl ies) of the C&O Canal National Historical Park (Potomac River Corridor). Unpublished report to C&O National Historical Park. 16 October 1994.Orr, R. L. 1995. Odonata of Plummers Island. Argia 7:6-8.Paradiso, John L. 1969. Mammals of Maryland. North American Fauna 66. iv + 193 pp. Peck, S. B. 1982. A review of the ectoparasitic beetles of North America (Coleoptera: Leptinidae). Canadian Journal of Zoology 60:1517-1527.Perkins, P. D. 1981 (1980). Aquatic beetles of the family Hydraenidae in the Western Hemisphere: Classifi cation, biogeography and inferred phylogeny (Insecta: Coleoptera). Quaestiones Entomologicae 16(1-2):1-554. Ribble, D. W. 1968. Revision of two subgenera of Andrena: Micrandrena Ashmead and Derandrena, new subgenus (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). Bulletin of the Nebraska State Museum 8:237-394.Robbins, C. A., and Sidney F. Blake. 1931. Cladonia in the District of Columbia and vicinity. Rhodora 33:145-159. Robinson, Harold. 1967. New species of Dolicbopodidae from the United States and Mexico (Diptera). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 69:114-127. Sherwood, John. 1977. The curious world called Winnemana. Washington Star ( May 8). Smetana, A. 1974. Revision of the genus Cymbiodyta Bed. (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae). Memoirs of the Entomology Society of Canada 93. iv + 113 pp. Smetana, A. 1978. Revision of the subfamily Sphaeridiinae of America north of Mexico (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae). Memoirs of the Entomology Society of Canada 105. 292 pp. Smetana, A. 1980. Revision of the genus Hydrochara Berth. (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae). Memoirs of the Entomology Society of Canada 111. 100 pp. Smetana, A. 1985. Revision of the Subfamily Helophorinae of the Nearctic Region (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae). Memoirs of the Entomology Society of Canada 131, 154 pp. Smith, D. R. 1969. Nearctic sawfl ies I. Blennocampinae: Adults and larvae (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae). United States Department of Agriculture Technical Bulletin No. 1397, 179 pp. + 19 pls.Sommer, Stefan Andreas 1986. The pollination ecology and breeding system of Hamamelis virginiana L. (Hamamelidaceae). M.S. Thesis, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. vii, 83 leaves. Staines, C. L. 2004. Changes in the chrysomelid (Coleoptera) community over a 95-year period on a Maryland river island (USA), pp. 613-622. in Jolivet, P., J. A. Santiago-Blay, and M. Schmitt (eds.), New developments in the biology of Chrysomelidae. Academic Publishing, The Hague.Staines, C. L., and S. L. Staines. 1999. Observations on Euphoria inda (L.) (Insecta: Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae). The Maryland Naturalist 43:31-33.Staines, C. L., and S. L. Staines. 1998. The leaf beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae): potential indicator species assemblages for natural area monitoring, pp. 233-244. in Therres, G. D. (ed.), Conservation of biological diversity: A key to the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem and beyond. Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Annapolis, Maryland.Steiner, W. E., Jr. 2000. Records and habitat of the “rare click beetle,” Cerophytum pulsator (Haldeman), in Virginia and Maryland (Coleoptera: Cerophytidae). Banisteria 15:43-45.Stewart, Robert E., and Chandler S. Robbins. 1958. Birds of Maryland and the District of Columbia. United States Department of Interior, North American Fauna 62. 401 pp. Steyskal, G. C. 1963. A second North American species of Traginops Coquillett. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 65:51-54. Stork, N. E. 1984. Additions to the list of Carabidae (Coleoptera) in the fauna of Plummers Island, Maryland. Coleopterists’ Bulletin 28:137-141.
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Tauber, C. A. 1969. Taxonomy and biology of the lacewing genus Meleoma. University of California Publications in Entomology 58. 94 pp.Viereck, Henry L. 1912. Descriptions of one new family, eight new genera, and thirty-three new species of ichneumon-fl ies. Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum 43:575-593.Williamson, Elizabeth. 2006. Club logs a century of change in local species. Wahington Post, p. A5 (July 31).Zimmerman, J. 1970. A taxonomic revision of the aquatic beetle genus Laccophilus (Dytiscidae) of North America. Memoirs of the American Entomological Society 26. 275 pp.
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RECORDS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS FROM PLUMMERS ISLAND AND VICINITY
The below list gives the numbers of species of plants and animals (n=4,835) documented from Plummers Island and vicinity. Invertebrate totals are from a database compiled primarily from the collections of the National Museum of Natural History for an impending volume on the invertebrates of Plummers Island.
Blue-green algae 32 Fungi 221 Lichens 91 Mosses 70 Hepatics 18 Vascular plants 885 Coelenterata (jellyfi sh) 1 Turbellaria (triclad planarians) 9 Nematoda (nematode worms) 46 Annelida, Oligochaeta (earthworms) 4 Crustacea, Anostraca (fairy shrimp) 9 Crustacea, Ostracoda (ostracods) 4 Crustacea, Copepoda (copepods) 12 Crustacea, Isopoda (isopods) 12 Crustacea, Decapoda (crayfi sh) 4 Arachnida, Chelonethida (pseudoscorpions) 2 Arachnida, Acarina (mites and ticks) 4 Insecta, Collembola (springtails) 1 Insecta, Odonata (dragonfl ies and damselfl ies) 45 Insecta, Orthoptera (grasshoppers and relatives) 63 Insecta, Phasmatodea (walking sticks) 2 Insecta, Blattoidea (cockroaches) 5 Insecta, Dermaptera (earwigs) 1 Insecta, Psocoptera (booklice) 16 Insecta, Thysanoptera (thrips) 57 Insecta, Hemiptera (true bugs) 307 Insecta, Coleoptera (beetles) 597 Insecta, Mecoptera (scorpionfl ies) 5 Insecta, Neuroptera (lacewings and relatives) 9 Insecta, Megaloptera (dobbsonfl ies and relatives) 6 Insecta, Trichoptera (caddisfl ies) 28 Insecta, Lepidoptera (butterfl ies and moths) 828 Insecta, Diptera (fl ies) 617 Insecta, Siphonaptera (fl eas) 10 Insecta, Hymenoptera (ants, wasps, and bees) 416 Mollusca (mollusks) 45 Fishes 57 Amphibians 21 Reptiles 30 Birds 203 Mammals 42
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GRANTS AWARDED BY THE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB
Year, Title, Grantee(s), Sponsor(s) Amount
2006Survey of the ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Plummers IslandMark Deyrup, Archbold Biological Station, Arnold W. Norden (Member), and Beth M. Norden (Member)
$2,240
Host plant associations of Tortricidae on Plummers IslandJohn T. Lill, George Washington University, and John W. Brown (Member) $1,310
Bioinventory of the springtails (Hexapoda: Collembola) of Plummers Island, MarylandJoseph Reznik, University of VermontSponsor: John W. Brown
$2,400
Analysis of the large 1998-1999 malaise arthropod sample of Dyke Marsh Preserve, Virginia: Asilidae, Bombyliidae, Conopidae, Stratiomyidae, and Tabanidae (Diptera)Edward M. Barrows, Georgetown UniversitySponsor: Donald R. Davis
$2,000
Testing for genetic impacts of a severe population bottleneck in striped bass (Morone saxatilis) in the Chesapeake watershedMatthew B. Hamilton, American UniversitySponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$2,350
The ecology of free-roaming canids in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C.Megan Draheim and Larry L. Rockwood, George Mason UniversitySponsor: John M. Hadidian
$2,350
Genetic variation and mortality of central Maryland eastern box turtles (Terrapene c. carolina)Susan Hagood, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Lowell W. Adams
$2,500
2005Potomac Gorge Bioblitz (food for volunteers)Arthur V. Evans and Stephanie Flack, The Nature ConservancySponsor: M. Alma Solis
$1,000
Predator-prey interactions between mud-dauber wasps (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae) and spiders (Aranae)Divya Bellur Uma, Georgetown UniversitySponsor: John W. Brown
$2,270
Possible double-brooding in temperate-breeding orioles: breeding behavior of Baltimore orioles in MarylandSpring D. Ligi, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountySponsor: Mercedes S. Foster
$865
307
Host plant and parasitoid associations of slug caterpillars on Plummers IslandJohn T. Lill, George Washington University Sponsor: Patrick S. Herendeen
$2,200
From its source to the sea: the selective pressures on swamp sparrows along Potomac headwaters and mid-Atlantic coastBrian Olsen and Russell Greenberg, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversitySponsor: Daryl J. Boness
$2,470
A study of the genetic structure of terrestrial snail populations on Plummers IslandColleen S. Sinclair, Towson University Sponsor: Arnold W. Norden
$2,500
Effect of urbanization on the adult stage of aquatic insects: does constrained dispersal contribute to community degradation?Robert F. Smith, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Lowell W. Adams
$2,485
2004New taxonomic tools for the 21st centuryW. John E. Kress (Member) $3,000
Inventory of freshwater mollusks of Plummers Island, Maryland, USATimothy Pearce, Carnegie Museum of Natural HistorySponsor: Arnold W. Norden
$2,000
Alien plants and the diversity of phytophagus insects on Plummers IslandDoug W. Tallamy, University of DelawareSponsor: John W. Brown
$2,000
Diversity and biological studies of arthropods of the Washington, D.C. areaEdward M. Barrows and Daniel S. Kjar, Georgetown UniversitySponsor: Donald R. Davis
$2,000
Partitioning pollinator contributions to fi tness components in a Potomac Basin population of Silene caroliniana (Caryophyllaceae)Richard Reynolds, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Michael G. Pogue
$2,000
Reproductive morphology and phylogeny of stalk-eyed fl ies in the Potomac BasinPhilip M. Johns, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: John W. Brown
$2,000
Construction of deer exclosures at Maryland Heights Harper’s Ferry National Historical ParkScott Bates, National Park ServiceSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr.
$2,000
308
Molecular genetic characterization of relatedness among Potomac River drainage populations of the wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta): Part 1: data collectionThomas S. B. Akre, University of GeorgiaSponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$2,500
2003Bio assessment of the woody vegetative communities present on Plummers IslandAlicia M. Wells, Patuxent Wildlife Research CenterSponsor: Matthew C. Perry
$2,500
Inventory continuation of the Lepidoptera of Plummers IslandJohn W. Brown (Member) $3,100
Survey of the occurrence and distribution of cellular slime molds of Plummers IslandJohn C. Landolt, Shepherd CollegeSponsor: David F. Farr
$910
Diversity and biological studies of arthropods of the Washington, D.C. areaEdward M. Barrows and Daniel S. Kjar, Georgetown UniversitySponsor: Donald R. Davis
$2,500
The role of learning in foraging by Polistes fuscatus waspsMartha R. Weiss, Georgetown UniversitySponsor: Donald R. Davis
$1,000
Soil moisture as a source of variation in home range size of Terrapene carolinaWill Brown, Shenandoah National ParkSponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$2,485
Floristic survey of the eastern Goose Creek Watershed, Loudoun County, VirginiaLisa B. Williams, George Mason UniversitySponsor: James D. Lawrey
$2,500
2002Inventory of the harvestmen (Opiliones) and millipedes (Diplopoda) of Plummers IslandJeff Shultz, Heather Wilson, and Ethane Kane, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Arnold W. Norden
$2,400
Diversity and biological studies of hexapods (insects and close kin) of Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, VirginiaEdward M. Barrows and Daniel S. Kjar, Georgetown University Sponsor: Donald R. Davis
$2,500
Pyralidae (Pyraloidea) of Plummers Island, including a molecular phylogenetic analysisM. Alma Solis (Member) and S. Scheffer, Systematic Entomology Laboratory $2,377
309
Composition, population dynamics, and ecology of the anuran community at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, VirginiaEllen K. Carson, George Mason University Sponsor: Don E. Wilson
$2,500
2001The use of forward looking infra-red (FLIR) imagery to locate bird carcasses resulting from the agricultural use of pesticidesLowell W. Adams (Member) and Juliet Healy, University of Maryland, College Park $2,500
Inventory of Microlepidoptera (Insecta: Lepidoptera) of Plummers Island, MarylandJohn W. Brown (Member) $1,820
Rhagionidae of Plummers IslandPeter J. Hibbs, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Donald R. Davis
$1,149
Estimating breeding population structure of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) in the Chesapeake watershed Matthew B. Hamilton, Georgetown University Sponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$1,900
Learning ability in the pipevine swallowtail butterfl y: comparison with honeybeesMartha R. Weiss, Georgetown University Sponsor: John W. Brown
$1,900
Diversity and biological studies of hexapods (insects and close kin) of Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, VirginiaEdward M. Barrows and Daniel S. Kjar, Georgetown University Sponsor: Donald R. Davis
$1,900
Infl uence of beaver impoundments on water chemistry and fi sh and macroinvertebrate assemblages in Maryland streams Patricia J. Allen, Rebecca Peet, and Richard L. Raesly, Frostburg University Sponsor: Alfred L. Gardner
$1,900
2000Diversity and biological studies of hexapods (insects and close kin) of Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, VirginiaEdward M. Barrows, Georgetown University Sponsor: Donald R. Davis
$2,500
The effects of grassland management on the selection of foraging habitat bybirds of preyKerry J. Fitzpatrick, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Lowell W. Adams
$1,100
Populations monitoring of the North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) using a noninvasive molecular methodMichael D. Brandhagen, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$2,500
310
Floristics of Carex (Cyperaceae) in the Potomac River GorgeChris Lea, National Park Service, and Chris Frye, Maryland Department of Natural ResourcesSponsor: James D. Lawrey
$1,100
1999Diversity of hexapods (insects and close kin) of Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, VirginiaEdward M. Barrows, Georgetown University Sponsors: David W. Johnston and Donald R. Davis
$2,500
Suppression of Ixodes scapularis and Borrelia burgdorferi by self-application of permethrin by white-tailed deerVictoria Solberg, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Lowell W. Adams
$2,500
Inventory of the Noctuidae of Plummers IslandMichael G. Pogue, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA Sponsor: Donald R. Davis
$1,170
A survey for Lucanus elephus Fabricius (Coleoptera: Lucanidae) in MarylandCharles L. Staines and S. L. Staines, National Museum of Natural HistorySponsor: Paul J. Spangler
$2,500
Population abundance and habitat requirements of the marsh wren (Cistothorus palustris) at Dyke Marsh National Wildlife Preserve, VirginiaSandy C. Spencer, George Mason University Sponsors: James D. Lawrey and David W. Johnston
$1,917
Natural history of Plummers Island, Maryland: 100 years of data on the ground beetles of a temperate forest site (Coleoptera: Carabidae)Terry L. Erwin (Member) and Raul Medina, University of Maryland, College Park $2,500
Examining the impact of a non-native bivalve (Corbicula fl uminea) on resource availability to native unionid mussels in the Potomac River drainage basinChristine Hakenkamp, James Madison University Sponsor: Larry R. Jahn
$1,000
Species turnover in the tortricid moths (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) of Plummers Island, MarylandJohn W. Brown, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA Sponsor: Donald R. Davis
$2,000
1998The Microlepidoptera (Insecta: Lepidoptera) of Maryland, with an emphasis on Plummers IslandJohn W. Brown, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA Sponsor: M. Alma Solis
$2,000
311
Linking species and ecosystem processes: are native and introduced bivalve species redundant?Christine Hakenkamp, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Larry R. Jahn
$2,000
The effect of soil organic matter on phosphorus retention and transformation in constructed and natural freshwater wetlandsDianna Hogan, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$2,500
Inventory and monitoring of the Noctuidae (Insecta: Lepidoptera) of Plummers Island, MarylandMichael G. Pogue, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA Sponsor: M. Alma Solis
$1,825
Suppression of Ixodes scapularis and Borrelia burgdorferi by self-application of permethrin by white-tailed deerVictoria Solberg and Earlene Armstrong, Walter Reed Army Research InstituteSponsor: Lowell W. Adams
$2,500
The Chrysomelidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) of Plummers Island, Maryland Year 2Charles L. Staines, National Museum of Natural History Sponsor: Paul J. Spangler
$2,500
Effects of immunocontraception on white-tailed deer fawnsLori Thiele, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Lowell W. Adams
$2,500
The relative importance of native and exotic herbaceous species in recovery from fl ood damage along the Potomac River at Plummers IslandElizabeth F. Wells, George Washington University Sponsor: Stanwyn G. Shetler
$750
1997Movement and mortality patterns of translocated urban-suburban gray squirrelsLowell W. Adams (Member) and Vagn F. Flyger (Member) $2,500
The reproductive ecology of the wood turtle (Clemmys insculpta) in northern VirginiaThomas S. B. Akre, George Mason University Sponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$2,515
BioBlitz of Chain Bridge FlatsOlin Allen, District of Columbia Natural Heritage Program Sponsor: John M. Hadidian
$1,000
The effects of beaver dams on macroinvertebrate assemblages, water chemistry, and hydrology in low-order streams of western MarylandBrian Margolis and Richard Raesly, Frostburg State University Sponsor: Paul Brouha
$2,349
312
The relative importance of native and exotic herbaceous species in recovery from fl ood damage along the Potomac River at Plummers IslandElizabeth F. Wells, George Washington University Sponsor: Stanwyn G. Shetler
$1,978
Monitoring calling Orthoptera of Plummers Island and the Potomac River Basin as a means of evaluating seasonal and yearly environmental changesSamuel W. Droege, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Sponsor: Paul J. Spangler
$2,500
A survey of the harvestmen (Arachnida, Opiliones) occurring in the vicinity of Plummers IslandArnold W. Norden (Member) $700
Inventory of tardigrades of Plummers IslandMarcia Shofner, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$2,209
The Chrysomelidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) of Plummers Island Charles L. Staines, National Museum of Natural History Sponsor: Paul J. Spangler
$2,500
Bioassessment of northern Virginia stream quality, using benthic macroinvertebratesAllyson Via-Norton, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$2,115
1996Amphibian, reptile, and mammal survey of Dyke Marsh, VirginiaWalter Bulmer, Northern Virginia Community College Sponsor: David W. Johnston
$1,745
Movement and mortality patterns of translocated urban-surburban gray squirrelsLowell W. Adams (Member) $2,100
Insect biodiversity of Dyke Marsh Wildlife PreserveEdward W. Barrows, Georgetown UniversitySponsor: David W. Johnston
$2,500
Vegetation survey of the Woodbridge Unit of the Mason Neck National Wildlife RefugeElaine Haug, Department of Biology, Smithsonian Institution Sponsor: Stanwyn G. Shetler
$2,500
Vegetative communities of the fl ood plain and fl ood terraces in the Potomac River GorgeChris Lea, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$1,600
Life histories of slugs of Plummers IslandArnold W. Norden (Member) $900
313
Infl uence of white-tailed deer on survival and density of rare and endangered spring wildfl owers in the Potomac BasinLisa Shipley, Frostburg State University Sponsor: John M. Hadidian
$1,926
Herpetofauna of constructed forested wetland and adjacent areasT’Shaka Touré, Howard University Sponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$1,675
Biodiversity of the Harpacticoida (Crustacea: Copepoda) in the Potomac Basin surrounding Plummers IslandGrace Wyngaard, James Madison University Sponsor: Don E. Wilson
$1,511
1995The pollination biology of witch hazel: Hamamelis virginiana L.Stefan Sommer, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Eugene S. Morton
$1,000
Crayfi sh feeding behaviorRobert Creed, Hood College Sponsor: John S. Gottschalk
$1,276
A radiotelemetry feasibility study to support American shad restoration in the Potomac RiverJames D. Cummins, Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin Sponsor: Paul Brouha
$800
Calling station fi delity of male green tree frogs (Hyla cinerea)Sandra D’Alessandro, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$1,674
Floral inventory of Diamond LabElaine Haug, National Museum of Natural History Sponsors: Stanwyn G. Shetler and John S. Gottschalk
$2,500
Polygonum perfoliatum: A study of biological features leading to the formation of a management policyJudith A. Okay, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$1,250
Microhabitat preference and nest survival in the spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata)Thomas Wilson, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$2,500
Insect diversity of Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, VirginiaEdward M. Barrows, Georgetown University Sponsor: David W. Johnston
$2,500
314
Inventory of fi sh of the waters around Plummers IslandWayne Starnes, North Carolina State Museum Sponsor: James C. Tyler, II
$5,000
1994Ecology of the eastern box turtle, Terrapene carolinaTimothy Boucher, George Mason University Sponsor: James D. Lawrey
$2,475
A survey of the lotic gastropods of the Potomac BasinN. LeRoy Poff, Department of Zoology, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor:
$2,450
Survey of the terrestrial mollusks of Plummers Island and the adjacent Maryland shorelineArnold W. Norden (Member) $500
Differential survivorship in juvenile snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentine) based on hatching sizeJames C. Wilgenbusch, George Mason UniversitySponsors: James D. Lawrey and Thomas H. Fritts
$2,500
The effects of low pH on the upland chorus frog, Pseudacris feriarumKay M. Briggs, George Mason UniversitySponsors: James D. Lawrey and Thomas H. Fritts
$1,925
1993Foraging ecology of bats in the Potomac BasinPeter S. MillerSponsor: Don E. Wilson
$2,405
Census of breeding birds of the District of ColumbiaJane N. Huff, Audubon Naturalist SocietySponsor: Don E. Wilson
$2,100
Winter ecology of the eastern box turtleTimothy P. Boucher, George Mason UniversitySponsor: James D. Lawrey
$2,499
Seasonal emergence patterns and species diversity of Potomac River TrichopteraRichard M. Duffi eld, Howard UniversitySponsor:
$2,333
Survey of avian diversity on Plummers Island and the adjacent mainlandDavid W. Johnston (Member) $334
1992An update of breeding bird populations on Plummers Island and the adjacent mainlandDavid W. Johnston (Member) $150
Lichens as long-term pollution monitors at Plummers IslandJames D. Lawrey (Member) $2,630
315
Seed dispersal dynamics of trout lily (Erythronium americanum)Scott Ruhren, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Stanwyn G. Shetler $2,443
Inventory of the lichen specimens of the Washington, D.C., area at the National Museum of Natural HistoryEllen Farr, National Museum of Natural HistorySponsor: James D. Lawrey
$5,500
Factors controlling local temperature variations in the Washington, D.C., urban heat islandMichael Pendleton, George Mason UniversitySponsor:
$2,451
1991Fisheries survey around Plummers Island, MarylandA. Rottman, University of Maryland and Interstate Commission Potomac River BasinSponsor: Paul Brouha
$2,500
Orchelimum nigripes and O. pulchellum in Potomac Basin: song divergence and speciation in two meadow katydids.Leo Shapiro, State University of New York, Stony BrookSponsor: Terry L. Erwin
$2,162
A study of plant communities in the Hunting Bay areaXu Zhaoran, George Mason UniversitySponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr.
$2,500
Biota of Dyke Marsh, Potomac River, Farifax County, VirginiaDon Kelso, Xu Zhaoran, Elaine Haug, Scott Belfi t, andSteve Getlein, George Mason UniversitySponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr. $2,500
An annotated checklist of the fl ora of Rock Creek Park, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.Peggy Fleming, National Park ServiceSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr. $1,280
Collection of vascular plants on National Park Service lands in the coastal plainsregions of the District of Columbia and nearby MarylandStephen Syphax and Gentry Davis, National Capital Parks-EastSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr. $2,000
1990Collection of vascular plants within the Potomac BasinPeggy Fleming, National Park ServiceSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr. $2,000
Habitat use and movement patterns of the snapping turtleSteve W. Gotte, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Museum of Natural HistorySponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$2,470
Study of nesting behavior in the wood turtle, Clemmys insculptaJohn McBreen, George Mason UniversitySponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$1,287
316
Provisioning behavior and reproductive success: the currency of fi tness in a solitary wasp Trypoxylon lactitarse (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae)Chaarma Boyde, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Karl V. Krombein $2,500
1989Collection of vascular plants within the Potomac BasinPeggy Fleming, National Park Service, Rock Creek ParkSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr. $2,000
An inventory of Virginia raptor specimensDavid W. Johnston (Member) $500Study of the nesting behavior in the wood turtle, Clemmys insculptaJohn F. McBreen, George Mason UniversitySponsor: Roy W. McDiarmid
$1,444
The spider community of Plummers Island, MarylandEdward M. Barrows, Georgetown University and Jonathan A. Coddington, NationalMuseum of Natural HistorySponsor: Ronald J. McGinley
$2,500
Identifi cation of vascular plants in Rock Creek Park and Columbia IslandPeggy Fleming, National Park Service, Rock Creek ParkSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr.
$1,200
1988Survey for Acanthamoeba in the Potomac BasinRalph P. Eckerlin, Northern Virginia Community College, and Thomas K. Sawyer, Rescon Associates, Inc.Sponsor: Alfred L. Gardner
$500
Collection of vascular plants within the Potomac BasinPeggy Fleming, National Park Service, Rock Creek ParkSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr.
$2,240
1987Lichens as pollution monitors in the Potomac River BasinMason E. Hale and James E. Lawrey (Members) $2,325Collection of fossil ferns from the Potomac GroupJudy E. Skog, George Mason UniversitySponsor: Dan H. Nicolson
$2,350
Printing and reprint costs for publication submitted to Proceedings of the Biological Society of WashingtonDavid W. Johnston (Member) $712Collection of vascular plants within the Potomac BasinPeggy Fleming, National Park Service, Rock Creek ParkSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr.
$2,499
Survey of parasites from an urban raccoon populationJohn M. Hadidian, National Park ServiceSponsor: Vagn F. Flyger
$2,000
317
Experimental analysis of directional selection for small body size in Acanthoscelides alboscutellatus (Coleoptera: Bruchidae), imposed by the constraints of its host plants Ludwigia alternifolia (Onagracaeae)James R. Ott, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Eugene S. Morton
$1,769
1986Quantitative monitoring of airborne lead pollution by a foliose lichen:further studies David Schwartzman, Howard UniversitySponsor: James D. Lawrey $2,500
Computer based inventory of the vascular plants of the District of Columbia regionStanwyn G. Shetler (Member) $2,200
1985Bee community of Plummers IslandRonald J. McGinley (Member) $3,000
1984Annotated checklist and larval keys to the Geometridae of Plummers IslandRoger L. Heitzman, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: J. F. Gates Clarke
$2,129
Breeding bird populations of Plummers Island and intrasexual niche partitioning in the northern cardinalDavid W. Johnston (Member) $660
The pollination biology of witch hazel: Hamamelis virginiana L.Stefan Sommer, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Eugene S. Morton
$1,000
1983Urban raccoons and rabies in Rock Creek Park: ecological, eipizootiological, and immunological assessmentDavid A. Manski, National Park Service, and Victoria C. Guerrero, University of the District of ColumbiaSponsor: L. Kay Thomas, Jr.
$2,000
Seed dispersal in two species of Rubus (R. allegheniensis Porter and R. fl agellaris Wildenow) and implications for reproductive resource allocationGeorge Middendorf and Muriel Poston, Howard UniversitySponsor: Richard S. Cowan
$2,500
The pollination biology of witch hazel: Hamamelis virginiana L.Stefran A. Sommer, University of Maryland, College Park Sponsor: Eugene S. Morton
$2,120
1982The biting midges of Plummers IslandWillis W. Wirth (Member) $500
318
The structure of the fl ower fl y (Diptera: Syrphidae) community in theWashington, D.C., areaEdward M. Barrows and F. Christian Thompson, Georgetown UniversitySponsor: Ronald W. Hodges
$2,500
A systematic investigation of the subgenus Pseudophonus, Harpalus (Coleoptera: Carabidae), in the Potomac River Basin Brian D. Farrell, University of Maryland, College ParkSponsor: Terry L. Erwin
$564
Population dynamics of a neotropical migrant bird, the Kentucky warbler (Oporornis formosus)Eugene S. Morton (Member) $2,004
A checklist of fl owering plants and ferns of Plummers Island Stanwyn G. Shetler (Member) $2,312
Exotic plant impact; ecology and geography of Virginia mallow; and hydrology, geomorphology, and vegetation in and around Theodore Roosevelt IslandL. Kay Thomas, Jr. (Member) $1,544
Patterns of heavy metal accumulation in lichens in the Potomac BasinMason E. Hale (Member) and James D. Lawrey (Member) $2,500
1981Lichen fl ora of Bear IslandMason E. Hale (Member) and Al Skorepa, Smithsonian Institution and Towson State College
$2,356
1978The biting midges of Plummers IslandWillis W. Wirth (Member) $2,000
Reprinting of the Flora of the District of Columbia and VicinityAudubon Naturalist SocietySponsor: Stanwyn G. Shetler
$2,500
1977Lichen projectMason E. Hale (Member) $1,155
The biting midges of Plummers IslandWillis W. Wirth ( Member) $3,740
1976The biting midges of Plummers IslandWillis W. Wirth ( Member) $3,000
Lichen growth ratesMason E. Hale (Member) $1,155
319
Plummers Island CarabidaeTerry L. Erwin (Member) $540
1974The natural history of carabid beetles on Plummers Island, MarylandTerry L. Erwin (Member) $700
1971Lepidoptera of Plummers IslandDonald R. Davis (Member) $65
Wasps of Plummers IslandKarl V. Krombein (Member) $284
1969Lichen biology and use of lichens as indicators of environmental deteriorationMason E. Hale (Member) $1,949
1963Wasps of Plummers IslandKarl V. Krombein (Member)
$312
320
Memorials of Deceased Members Plummers Island has been kept as a biologists’ paradise for many years and, so far as possible, has remained in a fairly primitive condition. It has proved to be an ideal spot for study and peaceful recreation in surroundings congenial to the Club’s members. Its proximity to the Nation’s Capital, remarkable in itself, has made it especially a boon to those members, whose time for such recreation is limited, but who seek frequent relaxation from the pressures of government jobs and the tempo of modern urban living. It is natural that the Island, unique and little known to outsiders, should have become a most precious possession in the minds and hearts of all the members.
Over the years, Plummers Island has become somewhat a shrine, as ashes of deceased members have been buried or scattered there. By their expressed wishes the ashes of Eugene Schwarz, A. K. Fisher, and Richard Manville have been scattered on Plummers Island and plaques placed as a permanent memorial for Schwarz and Fisher. Plaques were installed in the early years with hand tools, but in the 1990s members hauled a generator to the spot so power tools could be used. The ashes of Herbert Barber rest along the lower trail on the Club’s mainland property. Also, on the mainland are the ashes of the famous naturalist-explorer, Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885-1954). No markers were placed for these two individuals. Sowerby was not a member, but a guest and friend of members. Although Edgar Alexander Mearns also was not a member, he was an early distinguished friend of the Club, and his ashes were placed on the Island and a marker secured to a stone. Because he was not a member, his biography is not among the members, but is included in this section.
321
Under the terms of the Club’s agreement with the National Park Service, the property may no longer be used for memorial purposes, except in the case of those persons who were members on or before August 1, 1958.
Jack Clarke’s ashes were scattered on the mainland and Island by his wife, Nancy Clarke, and Karl Krombein early in the morn ing on October 13, 1990. At noon Jack’s life was celebrated by his family and a number of entomologists, both members and non members, at a picnic lunch. President Richard Banks dedicated a plaque in Jack’s memory at a meeting on the Island, September 14, 1991, attended by family, members, and friends. A memorial plaque for Mason Hale was dedicated by President Banks on November 16, 1991, at a service on the Island attended by family, members, and friends. Mason’s ashes were scattered on the Island later by his wife, Bea, and daughter, Janet. Mason was not a member in 1958, but the Park Service granted permission for installing a plaque because of Mason’s close association with the Island and the studies he conducted there on lichens. A memorial service was conducted for George Vogt, and his ashes were scattered on the mainland opposite the cabin on January 13, 1991. The service was attended by several members and entomological colleagues at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Jim Stevenson’s ashes were scattered on the Island, October 21, 1991, at a service attended by family, members and friends. A memorial plaque for Jim was dedicated by President Banks at a service attended by his son, Jim, members, and friends following the Oyster Roast on October 31, 1992.
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A plaque commemorating Karl K. Krombein was installed in the Spring of 2007. This plaque is the last installed by the Club on the Island and it was installed in a recession of the rock made with hammer and chisel. This technique harkened back to the techniques used in earlier years. Karl’s plaque was installed near the plaque for Jack Clark, which was the wish of both men because of their close friendship over many years.
There are now 14 permanent plaques on Plummers Island for the following persons:
John W. Aldrich Victor H. Cahalane J. F. Gates Clarke Albert K. Fisher Marshall C. Gardner Edward H. Graham Mason E. Hale, Jr. Karl V. Krombein Edgar A. Mearns Kenneth W. Parker Eugene A. Schwarz James O. Stevenson Lloyd W. Swift Alexander Wetmore
323
EDGAR ALEXANDER MEARNS (1856-1916)
Edgar was born September 11, 1856, at Highland Falls, New York. He manifested an early interest in birds, encouraged by his parents. When he was about ten he began to record his observations of birds, and when he was 16 years old, he began to prepare a vertebrate fauna of his region and started a well-labeled collection. Edgar recorded over 60,000 observations for the birds alone and was exchanging specimens with European collectors by 1875. His fi rst published paper (Bull. Nuttall Ornith. Club 3:45-46. 1878) acknowledged information from his “friend, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt,” worthy of comment because almost his last fi eld work was under the same leader of men when Roosevelt was president. He graduated from the Donald Highland Institute at Highland Falls and entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. He and Dr. A. K. Fisher, an early member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, shared the same room in a boarding house. During this period he began the publication of the vertebrates with a series of papers on the birds of the Hudson Highlands. Edgar graduated as a surgeon and married Ella Wittich in 1881. His joining the Army in 1883 slowed his work on the biology of the Hudson Highlands, but he did publish more in 1898, including 50 pages on the vertebrates with Observations on the Mollusca, Crustacea, Lepidoptera and the Flora of the Region. In 1882, Edgar passed the Army Medical Examining Board and was given time to settle affairs. He stored his specimens at the American Museum of Natural History and “there I labeled all of the large collection of European birds, and many others from Asia and Africa....” and “established a cabinet collection in zoology for use of the students...,” using his own specimens! He participated in the founding of American Ornithologists’ Union in September 1883 and in December received his commission as assistant surgeon with the rank of fi rst lieutenant. He was offered the choice of several stations and chose Fort Verde in Arizona (abandoned in 1891), a desolate and arid place, but a new world to Edgar. He formed a splendid collection of plants and animals and explored the ruins of the Rio Verde Valley. He was popular with his brother offi cers, who admired his diligence and zeal in preparing specimens. In 1888, he was transferred to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, remaining until 1891 (later returning in 1903) where he again accumulated a large suite of animal and plant specimens. The Mexican-United States International Boundary Commission was organized and in 1891 Edgar, who now was a Captain, was directed to report for duty and “by previous correspondence” he had obtained authority to establish a “biological section of the survey, provided this could be accomplished without additional cost to the Commission.” The work continued from February 1892 to September 1894, resulting in 30,000 specimens collected and transmitted to the U.S. National Museum. At the close of the Mexican Boundary work he was ordered to duty at Fort Meyer, Virginia, with permission to study collections at the U.S. National Museum. Much of the elaborate work he prepared was not published because Congress withheld the sum for printing and illustrations, but the fi rst part (Mammals) did appear in 1907. By 1896, he took a vacation in the form of fi eld work in the Catskills, which was the subject of a paper in 1898. In 1898, he was commissioned brigade surgeon with rank of major in the Spanish-American War, serving until March 1899, when he was honorably discharged and returned to his regular duties, being posted to Fort Adams, Rhode Island. Edgar joined the Newport Natural History Society and took an active part in its
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work. In late 1900, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was granted sick leave, which he spent camping on the Kissimmee prairie region of Florida, where in February 1901 he was promoted to Surgeon. On his return in May 1901, he began studies of jaguars and other tropical cats and published results soon after. In 1902, he was posted to Fort Yellowstone, where he was particularly active in collecting plants. In 1903-04 (and again 1905-06), he was posted to the Philippines, where he was largely responsible for the formation of the “Philippine Scientifi c Association,” organized July 27, 1903, for the promotion of science in the Philippine Islands. Major General Leonard Wood was president of the Association and encouraged every form of scientifi c endeavor. During Edgar’s fi rst visit he served as surgeon in the military department of Mindanao, where his time was so fully occupied that he had to work far into the night to preserve the specimens brought to him during the day. In his offi cial capacity he accompanied eight punitive expeditions against the Moros, but his collections grew. He accompanied General Wood on three trips of inspection, including a 1904 ascent of Mt. Apo, the highest peak of the Philippines, where he made many collections. By September 1904, the hard work had its effect and he was sent to San Francisco with complications of tropical parasitic disorders. After partial recovery he went to Washington and began writing a series of fi ve papers, establishing six new genera and twenty-fi ve new species of mammals from the Philippines. In May 1906, he was put in command of “Biological and Geological Reconnaissance of the Malindang Mountain Group” in western Mindanao, an expedition with 49 people, most of whom returned to the coast. After a month, they made it to the top of the second highest peak of the Philippines and Edgar remained on the summit three days to secure a good collection of the life at that altitude. Another achievement was an ascent of Mt. Halcon in November 1906, documented by E. D. Merrill, botanist of the trip. Late in 1907, he left the Philippines and was ordered to Fort Totten, New York, where he became aware of the disease that would bring his career to an end in 1916. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt planned an extensive hunting and scientifi c expedition to Africa and invited the Smithsonian to participate. Edgar was suggested for naturalist and agreed. On January 1, 1909, he was retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel but “to report to the President of the United States for duty.” The party sailed in March 1909. It traversed East Africa where Edgar seized the opportunity to collect material up Mt. Kenya to the snow line, walk across Uganda to better collect and observe, and ultimately down the White Nile to the coast. Of the 4,000 birds collected, 3,000 were by Edgar, who also collected small mammals, plants, and other specimens. In 1911, he was requested by Childs Frick for another African Expedition and from late 1911 until September 1912 he was in Abyssinia ultimately reaching Nairobi with collections, including over 5,000 birds. During this trip his only son died, the news withheld until his return, and news that proved a severe shock. His hope of working up his collections withered with ever-widening periods of inability to reach his offi ce. He passed away at the Walter Reed Army General Hospital in Washington on November 1, 1916. His early collections up to 1891, went to the American Museum of Natural History and the later ones went to the U.S. National Museum. Standley commented that Edgar collected the largest and best representation of the plants of Mexican Boundary and Yellowstone Park, adding “probably no one person has contributed a larger number of plants” to the U.S. National Museum. Hollister, referring to Philippine mammals said that of the 1,454 specimens in the National Museum, Edgar gave 1,012. He published about 125 titles and had several organisms named for him. Mearnsia is the genus of a tree in the Myrtaceae family from Mt. Halcon. A swift of Mindanao also carries his name, and the genus Mearnsella was given to a fi sh of Mindanao. For one who engaged in so many diffi cult journeys, Edgar was of a rather frail build, being only 5 foot 4 inches and never weighed more than 140 pounds, but blessed with determination. “Serene and placid in disposition, cheerful and optimistic in temperament, he was fond of the beautiful ..., yet philosophical and analytic and systematic by nature.”
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Wood burning stove in kitchen for cooking potatoes
Old and new traditions!!!Wild Turkey and shad roe along with
cell phone and Sibley’s bird guide
Shad fi llets on the grill Cocktail sauce and raw oysters on the half shell
Fire in restored fi replaceOyster Shells
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Oyster roast, October 1981
Oyster roast, October 1983
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“The bird I saw was this big.”explains Roger Tory Peterson as George Watson and Tom Gause (guest) listen, 1984
Al Gardner and Jack Clarke improvising a crossing to the Island prior to the 1985 shad bake
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First time women were invited to the Club’s shad bake, 1985Top row, left to right, Marcie Beyersdorfer, Vicki Funk, George Middendorf, Russell Hall, Bettina Sparrowe
Bottom Row, left to right, Linda Sims, Juan Nowicke, Patsy Goodman
Russell Hall (guest), Dave Trauger, Don Wilson, andRoy McDiarmid (guest), oyster roast, 1985
Modern convenience
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Work crew prior to shad bake, 1986Dan Nicolson, Luther Goldman, Jack Clarke, Karl Krombein, Lowell Adams, Dick Banks
Carting in the oysters by Ron Hodges, Dan Leedy, Dave Trauger, and Doug Miller, November 1986
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Jack Clarke making hash browns, oyster roast 1988
Vagn Flyger, Lowell Adams, and Matt PerryOyster roast, 1986
Dan Nicolson, John Gottschalk, and Karl Krombein taking care of money matters, May 1987
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Oyster roast, 1989
Chief Chef, Mason Hale, second from left, with his assistants, shad bake, 1989
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Work crew prior to oyster roast, 1991Jim Lawrey, Ron Hodges, Matt Perry, Dick Banks, and Luther Goldman
John Gottshalk and Lloyd Swift, November 1990Back: Dave Johnson, Luther Goldman, and Harvey NelsonFront: Willis King, John Gottshalk, and Gordon Fredine, May 1990
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Past presidents of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, May 1992Top row, left to right: Dave Trauger, Lloyd Swift, John Gottschalk, Gordine Fredine, Ray Erickson
Bottom Row, left to right: Karl Krombein, Ron Hodges, George Watson
Work crew pior to oyster roast, October 1994Left to right: Dick Banks, Tom Fritts, Dave Ellis, Jim Lawrey, Ron Hodges, Butch Norden,
Matt Perry, and Luther Goldman
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Shad bake, 1994
Inspection visit in winter with guests, Perry boys and Dr. Larry Atkinson, January 1994
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Bob Streeter, Jim Lawrey, and Warren Wagner, fall 1995
Work day prior to oyster roast, fall 1995Left to right: Ron Hodges, Jim Lawrey, Don Wilson, Stan Shetler, Bob Streeter, Dan Nicolson, George Watson,
Dick Banks, Tom Fritts, John Norden, and Butch Norden
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Dick Banks, Luther Goldman, and George Watson seeking shelter on a rainy day, May 1996
Louise Emmons and John Terborgh (guest), May 1996
Lek Batra, Butch Norden, and Suzanne Batra, November 1998
Butch Norden, Lowell Adams, and Pedro Acevedo-Rodriguez fi lleting shad, May 1996
Al Gardner, Beth Norden, and Louise Emmons cooking shad while in the smoke, May 1996
Oysters cooked to perfection byAl Gardner and Charles Handley, fall 1998
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Walt Bulmer fi lleting shad, 1998Stan Shetler, George Watson, and John Gottshalk
November 1998
Ferry to the Island with Al Gardner in the stern, May 1998
Luther Goldman speaking at John Aldrich memorial ceremony, May 1999
338Members at the shad bake, spring 2000
Vagn Flyger and Luther Goldman listening to Al Gardner telling a “tall tale,” shad bake, 2000
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Ralph Webb, Dick Banks, Butch Norden, fall 2004
Past Presidents, November 2003Left to right, Dick Banks, Al Gardner, Stan Shetler, Matt Perry, George Watson, Don Wilson
John Brown, Alma Solis, Dick Banks, and Ralph Eckerlin November 2003
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Walt Bulmer and Al Gardner preparing oysters, fall 2004
Butch Norden with ostrich fern, spring 2006 Ostrich fern on cabin path, spring 2006
Louise Emmons and John Lill preparing food, 2006Walt Bulmer and Al Gardner fi lleting shad for the grill, May 2005
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Resting at the end of the day
On the canal path, heading home
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“The illustration above, taken from a drawing by John White, made in the period from 1585 to 1588 in connection with Captain John Smith’s voyage to Virginia, is ready indication of the antiquity of the rites performed each spring on Plummers Island by members of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club.
May the shadow of the shad continue in the land (and over the fi re) and the interest of our members in its culinary preparation never cease.” (Signed) A. Wetmore
Centennial Logo for the Washington Biologists’ Field Club
